


Ivo

by Whaattap_chewie



Category: Mo Dao Zu Shi, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Genre: Dual POV, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gore, Horror Elements, Longing, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Slow Burn, lying, past NieYao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:21:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 52,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26562793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whaattap_chewie/pseuds/Whaattap_chewie
Summary: "I have already killed a man." A-Yao said, venom dripping from his voice. A-Huan kissed the line between his two hands."I have been fucked by many more. These hands are filthier than you can imagine."A-Huan gently opened them and put his mouth into the cup of his palms."I am still your friend.'' A-Huan said softly.---------The story of Lan Xichen and Meng Yao, how they met, how they separated, how they met again, and everything in between.Roughly canon compliant, mix between cql and the novel but mostly cql.
Relationships: Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén/Mèng Yáo | Jīn Guāngyáo, Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén/Niè Míngjué
Comments: 119
Kudos: 101





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pretty big departure from my earlier stuff because this is embarrassingly earnest and not very funny. Its just 12k of xiyao being very very in love.

That morning, like every morning, Lan Xichen opened his eyes at dawn. He sat up straight, then went to wash his face in a basin of cold water, at the end of his barebones room.

These days he lived inside one of the few buildings in Cloud Recesses that could yet be called buildings. The wood in their walls had been cut so recently they still smelled of life.

The wood was sturdy, beautiful. It was the same kind of wood that had once been all of cloud recesses, only with none of its years, and a coating of varnish it had not had before: a new invention that provided resistance to fires.

Lan Xichen took a deep breath and kneeled upon a mat for his morning meditation.

As he closed his eyes, however, the lingering dream the cold water hadn't managed to chase away returned, unyielding, slipping a velvety hand under his closed eyelids.

To the outside, he was always the dutiful first Jade of Lan. Always respectful, always diplomatic, as he had been brought up to be.

Only under the shell of his skin was there any freedom to be found: privacy, true and absolute, in the deep, ink-blue of his mind.

That night, he'd dreamt of the war again. He often did. He still couldn't let go of the fear, the danger, the desperation.

At first it had been a nightmare. Cloud recesses burnt, his father dead, his brother missing.

But something else had come with the war, A-Yao had been there too. He'd walked into his dream and put his hand on his, and taken Lan Xichen from the battlefield; from the pile of ash he had been standing in.

The dreamscape had shifted, it was another memory, now, that filtered through the haze of sleep and time.

He thought of the night before Meng Yao had left for Qishan, leaving him safe at the gates of Qinghe.

The war had taken too much to dare have hope of seeing him again. Lan Xichen already woke up each day wondering if it was the last.

Now he would be unable to see with his own eyes that Meng Yao was still breathing.

In all likelihood, they would die apart.

Their chances of victory were slim, Wen Ruohan appeared undefeatable.

Lan Xichen was meant to return to ally territory and take up his command in an already lost war, and Meng Yao to walk into the lion's jaws and shout its weaknesses to him.

Lan Xichen cried that night. He'd cried more during the war than he ever had as a child.

Meng Yao, who always held his own face with an iron grip, broke down too. He let himself cry alongside him.

Then, finally, he took Lan Xichen's face in his hands and kissed the salt from his eyes.

He'd done it very gently, as calm and peaceful as Lan Xichen had been frantic and desperate.

Lan Xichen had taken the taste back from his lips, opened his mouth and let himself be pulled forward, Meng Yao's hands around his face.

He hadn't worn his forehead ribbon since the day he'd gone into hiding. He hadn't used his own name.

He was not Lan Xichen, heir of Cloud recesses, son, successor, behaved disciple.

He was only an orphan of the war, chasing away the pain in his chest by pressing closer, holding A-Yao tighter, until the taste of tears faded between their mouths.

A-Huan had no forehead ribbon. A-Huan drank wine in taverns with strangers, he felt its warmth slide down his throat and pool at the bottom of his heart. He didn't care about chastity.

The idea felt so distant, in the chaos and fire, it was almost ridiculous to think of it.

He pushed it aside and removed the peasant clothing he'd been hiding in.

Then, A-Huan laid on his back, for Meng Yao's mouth to better cool down the burning of his skin.

But A-Huan was also Zewu-Jun, the first jade, pure as fresh snow and remote as moonlight.

He didn't know how to be kissed, how to be laid down and touched.

The thought that he might never really get to learn cut him like a knife.

After this one unpracticed, clumsy attempt, he would never have another chance, to know Meng Yao in this, the way he knew him in everything else.

Tears rolled down his cheeks again, and Meng Yao came up to kiss them, asking if he wanted to stop.

He shook his head, throat too tight to speak, and Meng Yao kissed him again, thumb softly brushing over his lip.

A-Yao dragged a hand over his ribcage, brushing over his chest and pulling a difficult breath from his lungs.

"A-Huan." He whispered, gently breaking the silence. "What do you want? Tell me and I'll do it. Anything you like." All breath, leaving him in one desperate exhale.

"I don't know. I've never..I haven't before.'' 

Meng Yao stilled, then sat back on his heels, between A-Huan's open, bare legs.

He removed his wonderful hands from the tender inside of A-Huan's thighs and crossed them on his own lap.

"Oh. Right."

Meng Yao turned his head and looked at the edge of the bed, toward the ground.

"Right, yes, after all you were..." He didn't finish. They had learned at a cost never to refer to their past lives, even when they were perfectly alone, but A-Huan knew what he wanted to say.

'You were once the heir of Lan.' As though for the length of a few kisses, Meng Yao had forgotten.

There was a creeping vein of fear on Meng Yao's face, overtaking the desperate heat. A sudden intrusion from the outside world behind their gauzy curtain of privacy.

"I...I forgot myself, it wouldn't be proper for me to...we shouldn't." He said, decisively. "I am a servant."

A-Huan sat up, almost in a panic.

"And I am no one at all. My name is not mine. My clothes are not mine. Are we not the same, A-Yao?"

He took Meng Yao's reluctant hand in his.

"Here, I am a farmer's son, running from the war after the Wens burned my home." This was the story they told, when someone asked who he was in inns and taverns. "I am no one. I have nothing. I am bare, I am cold." He pleaded. "A-Yao."

He tried desperately to take it back, to scrub off the reminder that had just spilled between them, their respective status, staining the sheets.

Meng Yao spoke very calmly, very well, as usual shrouding himself in his good manners to better pull away from him.

"You have a name, A-Huan, though you may have nothing else. This much is worth more than any commoner's piles of gold or fine silks."

He took Meng Yao's hands in his. Meng Yao could not look past it, did not care that their bodies were made of the same flesh and longing.

Not enough to disregard what a transgression it would be, to deflower the unmarried heir of Lan in a seedy tavern bed.

He wanted to tell him it was a transgression in name only, that countless others had...that for the Lans love was...but then, not with servants.

No, this much was never done.

"What are names, A-Yao?" He whispered desperately, feeling himself losing the fight. "Can you show me my name? Feel it? Touch it? How is it mine? It hasn't been mine in months."

A-Huan was his name. This was what they told people, in inns and taverns. Just A-Huan.

His shoulders bent, body reaching forward.

"Commoners may not have precious names, A-Yao, but they have bodies that are their own, with which they may fuck whoever they like."

The word almost burned his throat on its way up. Fire spread up to his face and ears and down to his stomach like a stone.

But he did not let it change his face, or his determination.

Meng Yao looked up from under the curtain of his lashes, shocked by the vulgar word.

A-Huan swore very little. Never, before leaving cloud recesses, but everytime he did Meng Yao reacted the same way: a little bit scandalized, and oddly delighted. 

'Fuck'

It wasn't only the coarseness of it. Speaking the word gave their actions a dreadful finality, a shuddering self awareness.

There was no denial to hold on to, no cognitive dissonance, no refusal of responsibility. No way to chalk it up to some incomprehensible impulse.

They were choosing not just the actions, but their meaning, too.

No more ambiguity, about why they had taken each other's clothes off, why they were skin to skin in this bed together.

Not like the nobility, the well-born and well-bred who never did such a thing, but like servants and sons of farmers.

Saying it out loud was like ushering a lantern into a black room and forcing themselves to see what was meant to happen silently in the dark.

Meng Yao let his gaze drop down, to his clasped hands. He did not look at him when he spoke.

"I truly have nothing at all, not in a past life, not in his present one. No name. No gold. Only hands that are not clean enough to touch even a farmer's son."

His voice dropped to a whisper as A-Huan brought his hands to his mouth and kissed them.

"I was not thinking properly." he said, in a voice that quivered.

He kept on protesting, but his voice was so weak, and his hands, trembling under A-Huan's careful worship, did not pull away.

"I only wanted to comfort you. I thought you surely had done it before, and this wouldn't mean a thing."

A-Huan held back the words of protest that rose up in his throat. Meng Yao still wanted to speak.

"I sought to comfort myself as well. I was greedy.''

He defended himself as though already on trial before some great authority, about to be punished for his misdeed.

"A-Yao, there is no wrong you have committed."

He half-whispered it into Meng Yao's hands.  
Somehow, his head was too heavy now to crane it up, to see Meng Yao as he spoke.

"If you meant this to be no more than two friends finding comfort, then so be it. If you want it to mean nothing, it will mean nothing."

The thought had not come to him, until he'd said it, that Meng Yao perhaps only wanted his body, and cared little for his heart.

But he'd spoken the truth, he would not resent him. He was grateful for anything Meng Yao was willing to give, and everything he had already received. Meng Yao had his heart, and it was a gift freely given. He expected nothing in return.

"There is no one inside this room, only you and me. We make of this what we like."

"If you don't care what happens to your body, then at least preserve your heart. Don't offer it to me and tell me to trample it.'' Meng Yao's voice was tinted red with reproach. He sounded inflamed now.

Then his face softened.

"I chose my words poorly. It wouldn't have meant nothing. I only meant...this is different. There are customs and rules. I had only thought to...to steal something that wouldn't be noticed missing."

"Had I done it a thousand times before, nothing would be different. Who would notice something missing? You would be taking nothing from me. Who are you afraid of?"

He spoke softly but it was not enough to conceal the edge in his words. A-Huan closed his eyes. Even in this room hidden from the world, with not a soul knowing where or who they were, they still were not free.

There was not a place anywhere they could shed the outside world along with their clothes, and simply be.

He'd never longed for such a place before, had always graciously carried the weight of obligation on his shoulders.

But in this moment he was naked, and he wanted it off.

Meng Yao looked up at him, as though he was fighting with himself to keep the words in. 

"Powerful men easily change their minds."

Meng Yao said, and this was enough to make A-Huan look up.

As he processed their meaning, A-Huan felt the words slowly cut through to his bones.

He struggled to keep from reeling.

It took him several moments, before he was steady enough to hear the pitiful tone these words had been spoken in, and see them for what they were: a wound, exposed, red and bleeding. 

Here was who Meng Yao was afraid of.

"You are afraid I will betray you." He stated, and he made his voice calm, and diplomatic.

The impossible scenario of Meng Yao knelt on a stone floor, awaiting punishment, was not so impossible to Meng Yao himself.

He was afraid A-Huan might put him there.

"You cannot know what the future will be. How you will feel, after..."

This too, cut him deeply, though he had been expecting it.

"You may come to resent me for this. And though the thought of what revenge you might take fills me with dread..."

A-Huan was struggled to stay still, with the horror that roiled in his gut.

"...that isn't what I'm most afraid of. Favors turn easily, love into hate like day into night. From you I couldn't bear it."

Meng Yao kept on sliding small daggers into him, retaliation for crimes he had not yet commited. A-Huan had no choice but to grit his teeth and steel himself.

Meng Yao could no longer see him.

In his place now stood Nie Mingjue.

"You did not think of me this way before."

He was sure of it, before this nerve had been struck, Meng Yao had trusted him with his life.

"I did not think of you as a lover before. I told you, I was not thinking at all."

Lover.

He kept the word in his mind for a moment longer and drew what balm he could from it, before allowing himself to fully consider what the sentence implied.

He had never wondered if Meng Yao's ties to Mingjue lay somewhere different from what he'd been told, if something more than friendship and loyalty had inspired the pride they displayed in each other. He did not wonder now.

Things were not as he had once believed.

He had thought Meng Yao had done wrong, and Mingjue had been unwise and harsh in return.

Only now could he see that Meng Yao had shared his bed, and yet still Mingjue had cast him out, bleeding and disgraced, to fend for himself alone.

And now Meng Yao was afraid.

"Then I won't be your lover." He answered. "But I will always be your friend, A-Yao. Regardless. Touch me or don't, I will not betray you. If you cannot trust my love then trust in my friendship."

"And if I killed a man in front of you?" Meng Yao spat out in return.

He wielded this final blade and swung, and again A-Huan endured it, now he knew Meng Yao was aiming at a ghost.

"I would still be your friend. I wouldn't betray you."

"What if I killed a thousand men? What if I committed unforgivable abominations?"

"I would be your friend, and I would forgive them." 

"Such words are easy to wield, and easy to forget."

His tone had turned cold as ice, and his words crueler than A-Huan could imagine. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a breath. 

When he opened them again, he saw Meng Yao was trembling with fear.

It cost him, speaking so much of his mind.

In response, A-Huan bent down and took his hands in his again, pressing his lips to the joined thumbs.

"I have already killed a man." Meng Yao said, venom dripping from his voice. A-Huan kissed the line between his two hands.

"I have been fucked by many more. These hands are filthier than you can imagine."

A-Huan gently opened them and put his mouth into the cup of his palms.

"I am still your friend.'' A-Huan said softly.

Meng Yao was so cold, so stiff and silent, A-Huan was sure he'd failed to reach him. He'd pushed too hard.

He would simply have to let go, and sit there naked, as Meng Yao icily dressed himself, took his belongings and left. This would be their goodbye.

But when he looked up from Meng Yao's lovingly kissed hands, he saw there were tears in his eyes again. 

He left Meng Yao to take his time with his tears, and retraced the path of his lips on Meng Yao's wonderful, capable hands, on every callous and fold of skin.

"A-Huan, you are foolish and careless." He said in a strangled, stern voice, eyes lost in the far-off wall, as though speaking to himself.

A-Huan looked up at him with reverence. All the resentment and displeasure in his gut dissipating from sheer relief.

"If I die, forget me. Swear it." Meng Yao said suddenly, voice hard as steel.

"I swear it." He said without even thinking. He couldn't think to protest.

Meng Yao removed one of his hands from his grasp to thumb at his forehead, softly, face wet with tears and hard with determination.

A-Huan leaned into the touch. He pressed into it like a flower to sunlight.

Meng Yao pulled him into a kiss, and he was too afraid to move, afraid to do anything that would cause him to recoil again.

He could only open his mouth, receive Meng Yao when he wrapped his arms around his neck, hold him steady when he climbed up on his lap.

Then Meng Yao pulled from him and hid his face against his shoulder, and A-Huan felt the tears roll down his skin.

It was as though they were already dead in each other's arms, waiting for the dawn when their necks would open and bleed, holding each other tight in the meantime.

They both cried more easily, now that the gates of their eyes had been opened, and A-Huan smiled weakly at the thought that surely they would be crying all night.

The thought turned into a pang of longing, how unfair it was.

"Forget me, A-Huan." Meng Yao said, pulling back. "Forget this. Remember me as your servant and friend, if you want me to touch you. When I leave, forget this happened, and be a virgin again."

He commanded, serious and trembling.

A-Huan would promise him anything and mean it.

"I will. It doesn't count, I'll forget about it.'' And he would. He would, he'd force his mind to erase it, wipe away the only proof of Meng Yao's crime against the gentry.

Even as forgetting it was a crime against himself.

He found his comfort in this: regardless of what he said, or did or promised, Meng Yao's hands would be, already were, forever etched into him.

He could forget but neither of them could undo. Meng Yao wished not to change him, but he was changed, down to his bones now.

"Thank you.'' Meng Yao's lips were trembling against him. 

A-Huan would always give him everything he asked, even if it was delusional, even if it made no sense, even if it hurt.

"I can hold you like this, if it doesn't count. I'll hold you, I'll do anything."

A-Huan shuddered out a breath, and smiled very slightly, a little sad.

Meng Yao was simply holding him, resting his head on his shoulder, tracing circles on his back, waiting.

A-Huan kissed his hair and felt him sigh very softly. They stayed like this for a long time, long enough for the fear and frenzy to mellow out, into the simple pleasure of touch and closeness.

For the solemnity, the gravity of the moment to slowly be worn away by a slow, encroaching wave of giddiness, of disbelief, at being naked in each other's arms, and completely free to be so, just for a few hours.

The barrier had been torn down, there was nothing to stay them now.

Meng Yao was already holding him, already they were bare, clinging to each other, A-Yao on his lap, pressed against him.

Yes.

A-Yao had shifted slightly, and suddenly he made sense of it. Meng Yao was on his lap. He wanted it too. He could feel him against his hip.

Meng Yao was against him, bare, and he could touch him, he could run his hands up the length of his back, feel the smooth skin shivering under his fingers.

He'd wanted to touch him for a long time.

Deep, even breaths, in and out. Regular circles over shoulderblades and ribs. It was almost like meditating

"I don't know what to do next."

A-Huan confessed suddenly, running his hand down the length of Meng Yao's hair.

He wanted to know what to do next, and to do it, and to do it more. He was impatient now.

Meng Yao pulled back, and looked at him, and there was the giddy breathlessness here too, the impatience that A-Huan felt. Clear as water in his eyes.

"You should kiss me again, then I will show you what to do."

It felt a little silly, now, to have cried like this. They looked at each other and almost started laughing.

A-Huan pulled him close and gently pressed his mouth to his, and in response Meng Yao tightened his fingers in his scalp, shifted and sighed to get closer.

A soft sound left his lips from the small pressure, and Meng Yao pushed harder, further, ground up into him to draw out more of them.

A-Huan felt his breath grow ragged between kisses, as Meng Yao pressed himself close.

After a few moments of this, he gently pushed him backwards, and A-Huan let himself fall, back in the position he'd been in before.

He could see Meng Yao better now, red and disheveled, his hair falling all around him and covering his body like a curtain.

He could see his cock, too, jutting over his stomach. At the sight, A-Huan's closed his eyes, feeling waves of self-consciousness and arousal intertwine painfully in the pit of his stomach.

Meng Yao noticed and laughed lightly, completely unembarrassed, before bending down to face him, placing his hands on either side of his head, caging him in with the waterfall of his hair.

"A-Huan, would you like me to touch you?" He asked, and there was a hint of a joke in his voice that lightened A-Huan's heart immediately.

He nodded, and Meng Yao dragged a finger down the side of his face.

"Where would you like me to touch you? Here?" He purred, and A-Huan caught on the kind of game he meant to play.

"Not here." He replied breathlessly.

"Where then? You have to tell me."

"I don't know." Meng Yao's smile got a little wider.

"You want me to touch you, but you don't know where? How can that be?"

A-Huan could have replied that all he had to do was touch him everywhere, until he found the place he meant, but Meng Yao was fond of teasing, and he knew his patience could not weather it this time.

(Another pang. Would there ever be a time?)

"I don't know how to say it."

He did, in fact, know, though he'd never said the words out loud and was embarrassed at the idea.

But he also knew that teaching them to him, and watching him flustered and red, trying to repeat it, was the kind of fun Meng Yao wanted from this game.

A-Huan was already squirming in anticipation, holding in his smile.

"Ah? How unfortunate. If you do not know how to call it, how can you tell me what it is? What a poor education you must have received.'' Meng Yao's face was dimpled with the amusement.

A-Huan huffed out a laugh.

"I was told there was no name for it."

"Oh! I see, could you be talking about this?" A-Yao stroked his thumb against his bellybutton and A-Huan burst into laughter.

"No...no, not this...A-Yao..." he wriggled desperately, and once the laughter faded his voice turned pleading.

"You know which part I am talking about."

Meng Yao smiled and his eyes softened, taking pity.

"Oh, I see, I see, it's this part, isn't it?" Meng Yao's fingers skimmed over his stomach and hovered over his cock, skimming the sides, not quite touching.

"Yes, there..." A-Huan exhaled. But Meng Yao cruelly took his hand back, sitting up and stroking his chin as though in deep thought. A-Huan huffed out a laugh again, biting his lip in frustration and disbelief.

"I see, well, how strange. You were told there was no name for it you say? But this animal has many, many names. You should certainly know how to say at least one, if you're to get through life properly."

He looked down on A-Huan's flushed frame, his needy expression, and did not relent one bit.

"I will teach you a few of them, and once you ask for it properly, then I'll touch you as much as you like."

A-Huan groaned and threw his head back, though he was also, deep down, pleased.

Pleased at the prospect of learning new profanities to make Meng Yao laugh with. Pleased, and eager for the teasing, and for the slight mockery.

"Very well, let's start with the common ones. Laypeople call it a cock." A-Huan's eyes widened in shock, unprepared to hear it so plain and so quick.

He took it in hand and A-Huan whimpered.

"This part here is called the shaft, see?" He stroked one finger up the length of it, to demonstrate, and let go again. When A-Huan groaned in frustration Meng Yao only giggled.

He ran his hand up a second time, biting his lip, and encircled it, pressing his thumb against the head just not quite hard enough to hurt, shocking him with pleasure.

"Now, can you tell me what this is? No? This part here is the head." He pressed his thumb further upwards, rubbing over the slit, and A-Huan let out a pathetic sob.

Meng Yao straightened a took a very serious, exaggerated expression, stroking his chin as though he sported a long beard, an embarrasingly exact rendition of A-Huan's uncle, and furrowed his brows, as though speaking on an important, concerning subject.

"Poets, as poets do, use more beautiful words than cock or prick. I once read a book in which it was called a majestic pillar of jade. Fitting, yes?"

A-Huan bit at his lip to hold in his laugh.

"This lowly one...is learning a great deal from his esteemed teacher...were this esteemed teacher not using him as a table he would get up and bow in thanks."

Meng Yao laughed, deep from his throat, and flicked his thigh mercilessly.

"Quiet. Look now. At the base of the jade pillar lay the two stones, as in the expression "A pillar and two stones". Always be careful, then, whenever you build any pillars, to keep pairs of stones well away from it if you wish to avoid mockery."

While A-Huan negotiated the swells of laughter that tried to take their place over the waves of desire and confusion, Meng Yao's hand traveled downward again, and gently cupped his balls.

  
A-Huan's voice died in an embarrassing squeak.

This part of his body he'd deliberately paid so little attention to his whole life, was now being so thoroughly looked at, examined, named and split into parts. It was excruciating.

He wanted to beg for mercy, and he wanted to spread his legs for A-Yao to torture him further, to look and keep looking, categorize and name and touch and poke fun at.

Meng Yao fondled him for a moment, then let go and moved his fingers lightly all over him.

Finally, he placed his hands on the curve of his hipbones, appearing to have had a new, more interesting idea.

"Poets do not deal enough in pricks to have many names to call them, unfortunately. If you want the better names, you have to ask a prostitute."

He said, and dropped his teacher's voice for another, purring, predatory tone.

''Let's see...a woman my mother knew well used to call it a fuck-beggar."

He skimmed his fingers over A-Huan's stomach again, skimming the side of his now throbbing cock, and A-Huan shivered at the burning he felt in his cheeks. He had expected vulgarity, and yet...

"Would you take a guess, tell me why she called it so?" Meng Yao asked wickedly.

A-Huan bit his lip, and gave his best guess.  
"Because...because soon as it rises..." A-Huan was breathing hard. "Soon as it rises it is helpless, and begging. For...for a generous person to take...pity on it."

He looked down, cheeks aflame, and saw the bead of fluid drooling down onto his stomach. Meng Yao was staring intently.

"You're exactly right. Until another takes pity on it..." he flicked A-Huan's cock with his finger, cruelly. "All it can do is beg."

A-Huan whimpered, white-hot lightning coursing through his entire body, both from the sharp sting and from the carnivorous eyes A-Yao was directing at him. His cock was leaking terribly now, making a mess of his stomach.

"What other names are there?" he whined, when he could no longer stand the intense watching. Meng Yao leaned down, conspiratorially, and his voice shifted again.

"An old woman who worked in my house called it "the maker of generations"

A-Huan snorted in surprise, and Meng Yao bit his lip in a wide smile. He moved closer and said again, in that same tone.

"The best leg out of three." A-Huan shook his head in disbelief, wide eyed, cheeks hurting.

"Master of the house...bald-headed hermit...plum tree shaker..." A-Huan squirmed under him with growingly irrepressible laughter.

"You are making these up, A-Yao, I refuse to believe it!" A-Huan begged out of breath, as Meng Yao collapsed, giggling, on his chest.

"I assure you I am not. Ah, there are so many more, A-Huan," he said, now wistful. "Delicate, lovely names such as shove-straight and creamstick, and man root, and..."

"No more! This one has reached the limits of tolerable knowledge, please..." he said breathlessly. Meng Yao's face was close enough to his now that he could cup his jaw and seal it with a kiss, and stop the onslaught of profanities that threatened to topple him over.

He pressed his laughing mouth on Meng Yao's, and it was barely a kiss because Meng Yao could not keep from smiling, and neither could he. It was barely a kiss, until Meng Yao's arms snaked up to hold his neck, hold him closer, and A-Huan mollified, turning to water under his mouth.

Menf g Yao pulled from him and smiled, more gently this time.

"A-Huan, you should ask me now.''

The low tone in Meng Yao's voice caused a shiver to run through his body, from the bottom of his feet to the middle of his back.

Yes. He should ask now.

''A-Yao...will you..." his lips twitched.

He would not be able to say it seriously, would not manage to keep up with the quiet in Meng Yao's voice that made his toes curl.

He bit his lip and smiled.

"Will you...hold my maker of generations?"

Meng Yao pinched his lips and closed his eyes, as A-Huan giggled quietly to himself.

But Meng Yao sat up and caged his head between his hands again, leaning over him, encasing him in the night of his hair, and his tone did not break, it was still quiet, and gentle, and softly burning.

''A-Huan, ask me again."

The breath left his lungs, and his fingers tightened in the sheets.

"A-Yao...please..." he was trembling fully now. He wanted so badly to do what Meng Yao asked of him, but the correct sentence would not even come to mind for embarrassment.

Meng Yao did not have mercy. He brushed a hand over his jaw and slowly lowered himself down, pressing a kiss to the soft skin of his neck.

His lips trailed slowly up to his ear, where he took his earlobe between his teeth, before pressing his soft mouth more fully to his ear.

"A-Huan, ask me again." He whispered, hot breath tickling the tender skin there.

"...A-Yao...touch me....wherever you like." He replied. Meng Yao came back up to look at him, eyes tight with love, before lowering himself down slowly, closer, until his mouth was almost touching A-Huan's, brushing his lips.

"A-Huan, ask me again." Meng Yao whispered against his mouth, and it was exactly like having been defeated in battle, lying in the dust, his sword knocked from his hand, looking up at a beautiful, unbeatable opponent.

"A-Yao...please take pity...take...take my..." he trembled to say it, aroused to his very core, "Take my cock in your hand...'' Meng Yao seemed to drink the filthy word from his mouth, smiling, sighing in pleasure, before pressing their lips fully together, kissing him deep.

"I will take pity, A-Huan." he said every word very slowly, eyes dark. "I will take your cock in my hand, and I will caress it, and stroke it, and make you come. Is this what you want me to do?" A-Huan nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.

Meng Yao sat up and carefully untangled himself from him, and A-Huan immediately missed the weight of his body.

Meng Yao kept one hand on his chest, a reassurance, as he reached inside of the pouch that held their belongings for a little vial of oil.

He sat again, on his heels, softly spreading A-Huan's trembling thighs, pleased and unhurried as he poured the oil into his hand and warmed it against his palm.

His hands moved gracefully, beautifully against each other, as he trailed his gaze down to A-Huan's cock, so heavy that it lay flat against his stomach.

He returned his eyes to A-Huan's face, and glided one finger up the length of his cock, before sliding it back down, making him moan with frustration.

"A-Yao, you're too fond of teasing..." he whined. Him, the first jade of Lan was whining, whining about...

He blushed furiously at the thought, while Meng Yao smiled wide, sharp.

His gaze softened however, and he gave in, taking A-Huan's cock fully in hand and tenderly slicking it over, as A-Huan's hips lifted off the bed from the sudden stimulation.

'Yes, yes, finally, yes,' was all he could think, the sudden onslaught of sensation almost too much to bear.

And then Meng Yao's other hand pressed on his stomach and held him down, grounding him firmly as the rhythm of his hand changed into something smoother, softer. Assured.

He was touching him in earnest, now, and without that hand holding him steady, A-Huan might have wriggled away.

It took a few moments before A-Huan realized the noise he was making, the pathetic, needy little sounds he couldn't believe were coming out of his own mouth, loud enough to obscure the slick, wet sounds of his cock slipping between Meng Yao's fingers.

"A-Huan, how does it feel? Tell me." And Meng Yao's voice was no longer teasing, it was desperate, pleading just as much as he was, and A-Huan's heart tightened to hear it.

"It feels like you're drowning me." He gasped, in between gulps of air. "A-Yao...A-Yao...I've had dreams about this, but it was nothing like..."

"You have?" Meng Yao stilled his hand, earning an embarrassingly loud keen from A-Huan, before mercifully resuming his touch, only at a slower, torturously gentle pace.

"How improper, A-Huan...when? How?" Rather than teasing, as his words were, Meng Yao's voice was trembling, weak and heated.

A-Huan reached out and dragged his knuckles to the side of his jaw.

''The night you combed my hair for me. Your hands had been all over me, and you were so gentle...ah...so careful and kind. I think I already loved you then."

Meng Yao balked to hear it, but A-Huan's cock was in his hand. They were beyond bashfulness.

"I loved you chastely, respectfully. Only...your hands had been on my face, and my hair, my shoulders, my neck, and I wanted more even. I didn't know what to do with myself...I was...I was mortified. That night I dreamt of your hands on me, and when I woke up...I was unwell..."

"You woke up hard." Meng Yao stated in shock, eyes open wide.

He'd slowly moved to straddle one of A-Huan's thighs, and was now very slowly, very lightly grinding into it, as though unwilling to actually bring himself any pleasure, but unable to stop his movements.

A-Huan almost came right then, from the wetness of it on his skin.

"What did you do next?"

A-Huan was panting with desire, every deep breath felt impossibly sweet.

"I turned to my side and willed it away."

"And when that didn't work?"

A-Huan laughed, and the laughter shook through him, startling them both.

"It worked. I have done it many times before."

Self-pleasure was forbidden in the cloud recesses.

''Really? Have you never even used your own hand?"

A-Huan turned away, newly embarrassed.

"I...I have, once or twice...I was terribly ashamed each time. It only felt...adequate. I didn't think it could feel...feel like this."

''Ah. Like this?" Meng Yao quickened the pace of his hand, leaning into his own shoulder like a purring cat.

But his eyes were feverish still, his hips rolling over A-Huan's thigh, more desperate now.

"In what way is it different?" He pleaded

''It...it feels smooth...like wet silk...and I'm so close...you...teased me so much, A-Yao, by the time you took me in hand I'd half-lost my mind already...and your hands are so different from mine, small and gentle and...and cruel...and the thought that it's you. A-Yao...A-Yao..."

Meng Yao was panting, cheeks reddening under the praise, biting his lower lip.

He clamped his legs tighter around A-Huan's thigh and whimpered from the pressure of it, and it was A-Huan who came from it, spilling all over his belly and Meng Yao's fingers, sounding as undignified as ever.

He lost his hearing, plunged underwater for a few seconds, shaking, breathless under the force of it.

Then, slowly, he became aware of Meng Yao gently thumbing at the skin of his thigh, bringing him back down to earth with small circles, looking endeared beyond words.

He reached down for a piece of cloth and slowly wiped off the mess from his hand, and then more carefully from A-Huan's stomach, making him shiver. He spoke softly, contentedly.

"Ah, A-Huan held up so well for one not even used to his own hand. After so much anticipation one would have expected you to come at the first brush of my finger, well done."

A-Huan smiled at the gentle mockery, sitting up slowly and, once Meng Yao had put the cloth down, taking Meng Yao's hands in his and kissing his fingers again.

He then looked up at him and kissed his mouth too, with the same gentleness, and Meng Yao laughed a little bit, at how ridiculously earnest it all was, smiling ear to ear.

Meng Yao kissed him again, and this time it was not gentle, reminding A-Huan that Meng Yao hadn't been satisfied yet.

A thrill ran through him at the idea that it was his turn, now, to make Meng Yao shiver and gasp, and fill the room with sweet sounds, and that he would see him over the edge, see him lose his senses in turn.

"A-Yao...your turn.'' Meng Yao's arms were wrapped around his neck, languidly playing with a strand of hair.

"Hmm? What could you be referring to? This humble servant is quite airheaded, he can only understand very clear statements." He mouthed softly against his shoulder.

"You should get to...to come. I'd like to help you."

Meng Yao shivered at hearing the words directly against his ear, before pulling back with a sleepy smile.

"And how would the young master propose to do so?"

He twirled a strand of A-Huan's hair around his finger and softly tugged at it.

"I have heard..."

A-Huan struggled, heat creeping up his neck into the line of his hair.

"I have heard in a tavern that mouths can be better than hands."

Meng Yao's eyes widened, then lowered, charming and devious.

"It's true enough. They can be better than cunts if one is skilled enough.'' He stated wickedly, making A-Huan's face and ears go from warm to furiously burning.

He lowered his head from the embarrassment, to see Meng Yao gracefully sweep his leg to the side, opening himself to his gaze. He was transfixed, and strangely terrified, pulled down by the force of arousal between Meng Yao's smooth thighs. He looked back up into Meng Yao's face and saw the anticipation, the thrill, and Meng Yao's hand came up to stroke the side of his jaw in encouragement, and brush strands of hair behind his ear.

He, in truth, had no idea what to do next. How to do with his mouth what Meng Yao had done so well with his hand.

A small part of him was shocked beyond belief at the vulgarity of the gesture.

He'd even been queasy, the first time he'd heard of this, when he had understood what those tavern patrons had meant, discussing among themselves.

But now, here, alone with Meng Yao, the idea of doing something so filthy was indescribably appealing. He wanted it so much he was lightheaded.

He came closer, close enough to touch, and the tickle of his breath was enough to make Meng Yao shiver.

He looked up at him again, and saw the pained, half lidded desire he felt, reflected on Meng Yao's own face.

''A-Yao...how should I do it?''

Meng Yao bit his lip at the reverent tone, and gently stroked his hair.

"You must be careful not to touch me with your teeth, or it will hurt terribly. Only gentleness, when it comes to this."

A-Huan shivered to hear it.

"Start by touching it softly with your lips, A-Huan. Take pity.''

A-Huan smiled, trembling, and kissed him there, on the underside of the head, as tenderly as he would kiss Meng Yao himself.

He pressed his lips closer, into to the burning skin, and felt Meng Yao gasp slightly.

His own cock was beginning to stir, to fill again, growing against the mattress.

He kissed him there again, more intently, and again, to the side, higher, lower, mapping out the feeling of it against his lips.

Meng Yao giggled above him, tucking a strand of hair behind A-Huan's ear.

''Is this right?" He whispered, almost mouthing against the flushed skin.

"It feels good...would you...ah...do you want to go further?"

A-Huan nodded weakly, desperate for it.

Meng Yao held his face very tenderly and whispered

"Open your mouth. Taste me."

A-Huan let out an embarrassing, low moan and ground into the mattress. This was somehow the dirtiest thing he'd heard yet.

He took Meng Yao's cock in hand and touched the tip of his tongue to it.

His tongue was more sensitive. He could feel him better, the soft texture of his skin, the warmth.

The taste.

His face was burning like fire and so were his loins, as he pushed his cock against the coarse sheet of the bed.

When he pulled his tongue out to drag it in one long stroke up the length of him, Meng Yao let out a soft, high pitched sound that surprised them both, and made A-Huan reach down to squeeze his cock almost against his will.

He was so terribly, shamefully aroused.

He tried again and Meng Yao let out another, easier sound. He moaned appreciatively, with every movement of his tongue.

Meng Yao stilled him with a firm touch, then took his hand.

"You're good...you're very good, let me show you how I like it best."

He pulled the hand closer and kissed it. A-Huan blushed harder when he realized what Meng Yao meant to do.

Meng Yao opened his mouth and slowly took his finger inside, pausing to suckle gently at the tip.

He never removed his eyes from A-Huan's wide, scandalized ones, taking it deeper, sucking it through the softness of his lips, caressing it with his tongue.

It might as well have been his cock, with how sensitive he was, how hard he'd gotten.

How could Meng Yao do this so well, everytime, overwhelm him like so with nothing but his mouth?

He was almost shaking, as A-Yao slowly released him, looking at him the way cats looked at prey.

Anyone would come from this, he thought.

He could make Meng Yao come, he realized. If he could do it right, do it like Meng Yao had showed him.

He took him in hand again and braced himself.

Carefully, slowly, he put his lips on him again. Kissed him there as gently as he could.

Then he parted his lips and slowly took him inside, wondrous at the feeling of this burning, living object suddenly filling his mouth.

He stopped and tried to recreate that obscene feeling Meng Yao had showed him, sucking very gently on the tip.

Meng Yao made a low, rumbling sound of pleasure and raked his fingers through A-Huan's hair in encouragement.

"Yes...good, A-Huan, good, just like this..."

A salty, bitter taste filled his mouth, as he pushed deeper, making Meng Yao yelp again.

Meng Yao's hands tightened in his hair, eliciting a low rumble deep in A-Huan's throat, but before he could do anything else, the hands tugged him back up, gently removing him from his task.

''A-Huan...A-Huan...this is wonderful, no more of it."

Meng Yao caressed his jaw, looking shaken and half out of it.

"...Why?"

He wanted nothing more than to make Meng Yao come, and he could see he was so close...

"I'd like to...A-Huan...come closer."

He pulled A-Huan to him until they were almost mouth to mouth and whispered.

"A-Huan, are you hard again? I would like...it may be forward but I would like..."

A-Huan nodded stupidly.

''Anything." He begged.

The confused arousal in Meng Yao's face settled a little at this, sharp teasing wit swimming up to the surface.

"A-Huan, you know how it is done, usually, between men don't you?"

A-Huan's mouth went dry. He nodded.

"I stopped you because I don't want to come just yet. What I really want..."

He tilted his head up, opening his mouth like an invitation.

"...is to do it the proper way. Would you like that too? To do it properly? To _fuck_?"

He felt on the edge of apoplexy, the way A-Yao stretched out filthy words between his teeth. He could die from this he was sure of it.

"I do....I do."

He wanted to. He wanted to desperately.

"Say it for me A-Huan. You have such a lovely mouth. It looks even lovelier around filthy things."

Meng Yao stroked his jaw very softly.

"I want to...do it the proper way. To...to fuck."

He whispered, shocked that he hadn't had to force it out, shuddering as the wave of embarrassment shot through his spine hard enough to make his toes curl.

A-Yao pressed his bottom lip with his thumb, then replaced it with his lips, kissing him softly, tenderly, for a long time.

Then, languidly, A-Yao pressed himself against him until they were falling backwards, until A-Huan was on his back again, shivering with anticipation, skin burning hot and strangely cold at the same time.

Should he be afraid? Would there be pain? If his mouth had been a filthy, outrageous thing to make use of for pleasure then what of...

He was very, very hard.

Meng Yao found the vial of oil again and poured it into his hand, warming it up just like before.

A-Huan realized now that he would not be able to see Meng Yao press his hands together again without thinking of this, and would surely have to excuse himself anytime Meng Yao washed his hands or oiled his hair.

(If he got to. If he ever saw Meng Yao again, alive, to watch him do all these mundane things he already missed so much.)

Then Meng Yao sat back, on his left hip, and twisted around to reach between his legs, and...oh. Right, of course.

It was proper, that Meng Yao would be the one to...yes, why had he expected it to be otherwise?

He wanted, he wanted, he wanted anything, and Meng Yao looked so beautiful like this, his face twisting slightly, opening his legs with one foot planted on the mattress, that he soon moved on from the thought, distracted by the movement of Meng Yao's fingers, languidly disappearing inside himself.

He looked up and saw that Meng Yao's eyes were open, and that he was looking at him.

He felt horribly seen. Meng Yao was watching him watch him.

Watching him watch him spread himself with his hand, watching how affected he was by the spectacle.

It took a lot of strength not to bring his hand to his own cock that instant. He shouldn't. It was too much. He was being too forward, perhaps he should avert his eyes.

"A-Huan, would you like to help me?"

It was like a punch to the gut, the way the arousal hit him.

Cold sweat erupted from his pores.

He didn't know what to do with himself anymore, without looking to Meng Yao, who knew exactly how to handle him, how to excite him, how to calm him, when. Meng Yao knew him better than he knew himself, in this.

He nodded, too excited to speak, and came forward on his hands. Meng Yao was leaning back against the bedpost, head down, looking up at him.

He looked as lost in desire as he was, no, not lost, he looked at ease, in desire. He looked extremely pleased.

''A-Huan, you have beautiful hands, perhaps they are too beautiful for such a filthy task...''

A-Huan shook his head. There was no nobler task than this in his mind in this moment.

He would break his qin in half and vow never to play it again, in the state he was in, because his hands were now for Meng Yao's pleasure and nothing else.

(Later, he would recall this thought, and redden in embarrassment at the childishness of it, having never before experienced the madness that came when lust and love were joined so inextricably. Later, still, he would retract his embarrassment, and declare to himself, with a clear head, that he had been right after all.)

"I would do anything at all. These hands are your hands."

"Then A-Huan...you see what I am doing, yes?"

He did see. He saw everything, and looked so intently he was sure to keep the sight burned into his eyes.

"Come, hold me close and replace my hand with yours." Meng Yao said.

A-Huan went to him and carefully, as though he was treating a wound, touched him there with his fingertips.

Meng Yao took hold of the oil bottle and A-Huan's hand, and again spread the oil evenly, carefully with the tips of his fingers, holding A-Huan's hand in his once he was finished, so as to examine it with a kind of languid wonder.

He even took his own hand and placed it flat against A-Huan's palm, like he was measuring the difference between them.

His heart was throbbing, all his body was roiling like the sea with waves of profound tenderness and boiling lust.

All his life, he'd thought that the highest form of love was something ascetic and sterile, something ideal, removed from the baseness of the human condition. Something that ascended to the heavens like a ray of light, the way poems, and songs, and philosophy had taught him.

But these were no heavens, here with Meng Yao, he was right here on earth, touching the ground.

He had never been so present inside his body, with all its animalistic demands of fuck, eat, touch, eat, touch _me_ , demands he could not separate, as they were sides of a coin, from the urge to cup Meng Yao's face between his palms and never let him feel unloved again, the tenderness, the compassion that painfully crashed against his ribs, the trust.

(The fear, paralysing, suffocating like a vice, that anything should happen to him. That it had already happened, and would happen again and still he would be too far away to help)

This was love, and it did not float up into the skies, it stayed, grounded, earthly, right here in this room, between the press of their hands, Meng Yao's palm so wonderfully, terrifyingly small against his.

He fell closer, until his nose was against Meng Yao's cheek, like a cool slab of stone to rest against, while A-Huan regained his bearings.

Meng Yao stayed like this for a bit, clasping their fingers together. He simply closed his eyes and shared in the peaceful quiet.

The air was still. All that could be heard was the sound of their breathing.

Slowly, Meng Yao turned his face to him, until the corner of his lips brushed A-Huan's, and their moment of peace came to a thankful end.

They pressed closer, too close for the kiss to be a proper one, to be anything more than a desperate glide, while A-Huan encircled his waist and pressed him tight against his chest.

Meng Yao held on to his neck, as he pulled their joined hands to rest between their bodies, pressing A-Huan's slick hand on the curve of his lower belly.

It was easy now, for his hand to slide down, to reach the inside of Meng Yao's thighs and softly spread his legs, to lay him on his back while Meng Yao softly sighed and chased his lips, tangling his hands in his hair.

"A-Huan...you're wasting the oil..." he said, softly against his mouth as A-Huan made to caress the tender skin where thigh met hip.

He wasn't avoiding it, only...there was something nervewracking about the idea.

Some feeling that perhaps this would take them out of this comfortable tangling of limbs and into something harsher, less forgiving.

He was afraid he might hurt him, do it wrong somehow.

Meng Yao cupped his face and pressed their foreheads together.

"If you go slowly it will be fine. Just start with one. Its not so different from the rest of it you'll see."

So A-Huan slid his hand lower still, over the soft flesh of his thighs down to the swell of his buttocks, and carefully pressed the tip of his finger into him, still unsure, making circular motions, hesitating, until Meng Yao's fingers tightened in his hair.

"A-Huan, _please_.'' He whined.

A-Huan realized that he was getting desperate, that he wanted it terribly and was not simply indulging him, reddening at the thought that he had been teasing him without meaning to.

His finger went in easily, and immediately the burning heat overwhelmed him.

He thought of this tight, burning feeling around his own cock and felt faint. How could he possibly take it?

"A-Huan, A-Huan let me show you...if you curve your hand upwards and crook your finger like so..." he untangled one hand from the base of A-Huan's hair and curled his finger repeatedly.

"Yes, like this, lower. Again, just a little lower." He sighed.

A-Huan followed carefully, and hit upon a swell that caused Meng Yao to seize up. A-Huan went totally still, suddenly terrified, until Meng Yao opened his mouth and let out a high pitched, lewd sigh.

''No...don't stop...don't stop, please, A-Huan. Keep it there, do it again."

So he resumed his motion, absolutely baffled and painfully aroused, now, to see that Meng Yao was enjoying this so much, writhing, eyes half lidded and gaze lost.

He wanted to kiss him like this, and so he did, and Meng Yao caught onto his lips as though they were something to cling to in a storm, kissing him without coordination, pulling him as close as he could and panting.

"A-Huan...A-Huan...if you keep doing this I'll come too soon. Enough of your hand..."

A-Huan understood his request. He burned with anticipation, but he was afraid again, unsure.

His finger had slid in so easily, but his cock surely wouldn't.

He went still again, and so Meng Yao put his hands on his shoulders and slowly pushed him flat on his back.

"A-Huan...is it okay like this?" He asked, perched on his lap, looking down at him with a flushed and needy face.

A-Huan nodded, of course he nodded, of course it was okay.

He placed his hands on Meng Yao's hips and lightly traced circles into the skin with his thumb, watching him, his head tilted, his eyes half closed.

In this moment, had Meng Yao asked him to take his heart out of his ribcage and give it to him to eat, he would have done so and been happy.

But Meng Yao only wanted a kiss, and then another, and another, curving over him like a dome, as if he were the sky stretching over the earth, naked and shimmering.

When Meng Yao pulled back for the third time their gazes caught like hooks, and it was almost unbearable, how still everything slowly became.

The air turned heavy between them, unbearably heavy, and A-Huan felt himself squirming under a stone of want and terror.

He needed whatever was to happen next to come quick, faster, before he broke in half over the weight of it.

Meng Yao bit his lip and brushed a strand of hair from A-Huan's forehead.

"A-Huan, now I will take you. Try and last as long as you can, alright?"

A-Huan nodded, as the anticipation grew in the pit of his stomach.

"Good boy." Meng Yao said, kissing his forehead, and he realized that Meng Yao had not kissed him there yet, as the soft touch glittered like lightning through his entire scalp.

He watched Meng Yao shuffle slightly above him, reach back, and with his other hand, slowly begin to touch himself.

It was too much. He had to close his eyes, or he would not even last long enough to feel Meng Yao have him.

He felt Meng Yao's wonderful hand take hold of him, and slowly, excruciatingly slowly, the tight heat wrapped around him like a shroud.

He could not hold in his voice. Embarrassing whimpers left his mouth until Meng Yao drank them from the source, curving over him again to kiss his mouth, muffling every sound, sinking down deeper and deeper.

He breathed in deep and focused all his might on repelling the wave of pleasure that was building at the base of his hips.

Meng Yao had asked him to last, and so he would.

His hands, still weakly clinging to Meng Yao's hips, dropped to rest on his thighs, as A-Huan threw his head back and tried to quiet the fire in his mind, from the feeling of Meng Yao burning hot all around him, moving, shaking, taking his pleasure from him.

He closed his fist and dug his nails into his palm, hard enough to draw blood, just to have something that would distract him.

His fingertips roamed over Meng Yao's body, his stomach, his thighs, an attempt at affection too frazzled to properly land anywhere.

A drop of water fell on his chest, and he opened his eyes.

Meng Yao was crying above him.

Immediately he sat up, and Meng Yao whimpered at the sudden movement, a whimper that was hard to place as born from pleasure or from pain, but that sounded more like the former.

A-Huan dug his nail in his palm again, at the entorely unwelcome twitch of arousal that Meng Yao had certainly noticed.

Then, with his unhurt palm he cupped Meng Yao's face, and with the other he stilled his hips, as Meng Yao was still inexplicably moving some.

He stayed like this and waited.

Meng Yao looked at him, expressionless, for several moments.

Then, a breath, a blink, and his shoulders fell.

Meng Yao fell forward, resting his forehead against his shoulder.

He leaned all his weight on A-Huan, who held him steadily.

Meng Yao let himself cry a little longer, while A-Huan ran a hand slowly down his back.

''Earlier....earlier I asked you to forget me, if I were to die." he finally said, cutting through the thick silence. "Forget about this. Be a virgin again."

A-Huan said nothing. He simply waited.

"It's for the best. But the thought is unbearable to me now, I don't know why." He swallowed. ''I'm sorry."

"Then I won't, and I will make a different promise."

"My mother is dead. My father will not recognize me. If I were to die I wouldn't have a gravestone."

"If you were to die I would walk through the rubble of cloud recesses and carve a tablet for you there; and if I find your remains, I will take them home. Once I die, I'll be buried there with you."

"If you were to die it would be many many years after me. I would be selfish, if in return for five measly months of my life I were to take all of yours."

A-Huan brushed the hair back from his face and held him closer still.

"It is the right of lovers to be selfish. I will not forget you, I will care for your body. Living or dead."

He did not ask what Meng Yao would do if he were to die.

The thought of Meng Yao growing old with more grief and obligation weighing down his prematurely heavy heart made him want to cry.

But he could not dissuade him away from a promise he had just made himself, and so he did not speak at all.

"If you were to die, I wouldn't be allowed near your body, so I cannot promise you the same. But if your body still lives, then I will always care for it, as much as I can. You may not be in need of the little help I can provide, after the war. But I will give it."

Meng Yao looked at him straight in the eyes as he said this, and A-Huan felt the shift between them, the dreadful shift of hope, from thoughts of both of them dying, to only one surviving, and treading onwards alone, to, finally, the most unlikely, the most dangerous fantasy, that both of them should live, and meet each other again.

Care for one another, as they had in these past months.

It was terrifying to think this way. Hope only made loss more painful, they both knew it in their bones by now. And A-Huan could see his own tentative, fearful fragility reflected in Meng Yao's eyes.

They cradled each other quietly, a shield from this overwhelming fear, and then Meng Yao, defiant in the face of this death that was creeping between them, sliding its bony fingers between their ribs and pushing their bodies apart, took him by the shoulders and pushed him back down, kissing him desperately.

"You must not die, A-Huan." He panted against his lips. "Stay alive, for me. Just for me."

Of course A-Huan nodded, of course he would, if Meng Yao asked it of him.

On his whim he would exchange one impossible promise for another.

Lan Xichen had never made promises he could not be sure of keeping. Lan Xichen had never lied. And Lan Xichen had never felt what it was like to have Meng Yao naked over him, kissing his mouth and begging him for the impossible. Only A-Huan knew how good it felt to give in, to give Meng Yao everything he wanted.

"Stay alive for me and we'll do this again. We'll do it every night, there are a thousand different ways and we will try them all. Alright?"

He moved again, shining in the candlelight, undulating, like a silk handkerchief in the breeze.

A-Huan couldn't speak anymore, could only squeeze Meng Yao's thighs and hope the rattled cries that came out of his throat were understandable as 'Yes. Yes. Yes, please, there is nothing I want more, just to do this a thousand times. I'll do anything you want.'

"A-Huan, just last a little bit longer, just a bit longer and I'll..."

Meng Yao sighed, angling his hips so that the swell inside of him was being hit straight on with every thrust, the sounds he made growing louder and more desperate, making A-Huan's task so much more difficult.

He had tried to make Meng Yao come twice now, and twice Meng Yao had stopped him, to make it last longer. He would not stop now.

He ran his hands over Meng Yao's open thighs, pressing his thumbs into the dip of flesh that appeared when they were spread like this, until he was close enough to Meng Yao's flushed cock to encircle it with his fingers.

He tried, as carefully as he could, to replicate the sweet, fluid motions of Meng Yao's hand earlier. Meng Yao's thighs clamped tightly around him, even as he kept torturously sliding up and down, as he begged.

"Softer...softer...not so fast...please...A-Huan...'', and with another slide of his hand Meng Yao was spilling over his fingers, sounding as though he'd been wounded.

He still moved, however, twitching around him with the last waves of electricity. Then he stopped, stood still for a moment, trembling with the force of it, and looked at him from underneath all the hair that had fallen over his face, reaching to cup his jaw. Stroking his face.

"A-Huan, good boy...you held up so well for me. It's your turn now." He said, breathlessly, and balanced himself with one shaky hand on his chest, to thrust down again, biting down his lip.

A-Huan had been teetering on the edge for such a long time now that it would take nothing at all, the press of Meng Yao's fingers on the skin of his chest, the curve of his neck, the fact that he was doing this for him now, only for him, that he was happy with him, that Meng Yao said he had done well, that Meng Yao had come.

He'd come and it had been so sudden he'd barely registered it, the wounded little noises he was making even now, the feeling of Meng Yao, spent in his palm, twitching. It was obscene, it was beautiful, and with one more glide of A-Yao's sensitive body he was gone, untethered.

All the waiting made it stretch for longer, made his heart skip irregularly, as he gasped for air, not because he couldn't breathe but because even air passing through his lungs felt like biting into a peach, tasting perfect sweetness and delighting in it.

He was gone from the world, except for Meng Yao's hand upon his cheek, Meng Yao's weight upon him, Meng Yao who still had not stopped moving, who seemed determined to squeeze the very last drop of life he had left in him, perfect, wonderful, torturous A-Yao who surely was trying to kill him.

He hadn't realized his mouth had fallen open until he felt the glide of Meng Yao's thumb over his lip, his other hand passing over his forehead like he was soothing a fever.

When he managed to open his eyes, he saw a look he had never seen on Meng Yao before.

As though all the hard planes and sharp corners that had been carved into him had broken apart, suddenly, and he was left open and vulnerable.

He looked at him with a sort of astonishment, trembling, and his wide eyes were no longer years older than the rest of him.

It was almost terrifying, in a way. Like a lychee shell breaking open to reveal its soft, translucent flesh.

It could no longer withstand anything, the pale skin could be split in half by nothing more than a careless brush of the thumb.

And so he when he touched his face it was with all the care he was capable of, pulling him closer and telling him with his hands, with his lips, with the warmth of his arms that he would not hurt him in this state, that he could let this breakable, soft flesh of his out in the open, when he was here, and he would care for it.

He held him close and kissed the side of his head, and let Meng Yao hide his face against him as much as he wanted.

How tight should he hold him? Would he feel trapped if he enclosed him in his arms completely? Or would he feel cold and unsure if he didn't? Would he appreciate being asked or would he find it bothersome?

A-Huan was unused to holding people. He didn't know anything.

He knew Meng Yao needed something from him in this moment but he wasn't quite sure what. He didn't know how to find out.

He held him there for a long time, as their breathing evened and the sweat dried from their skin, neither of them moving, or speaking.

A-Huan was still thinking.

After a long moment of deliberation, he placed his hand lightly between Meng Yao's shoulderblades and began to sing for him.

It was a melody from Gusu, one that Lan children learned early.

It was not a very powerful one, only good to soothe skinned knees and sore muscles, childish upsets and small bouts of tiredness.

But it was soothing, and restful. The little sleep afforded them before the dawn would would be made better by it.

He kept the melody low and quiet, barely audible to anyone but them, and Meng Yao sleepily opened his eyes to watch him.

"This is all that I can give to take with you.'' A-Huan said.

Most of his belongings had been broken apart and sold early on, he had nothing but the contents of the library and the clothes on his back.

"A song from my childhood. It helps small pains and sorrows."

"I cannot practice musical cultivation." Meng Yao replied, in a muffled, disappointed tone, already half asleep.

It made sense. The little cultivation Meng Yao had learmed had been in Qinghe's army, and there was no musical instruction to be found there.

"This one is very simple."

A-Yao opened his eyes and blinked the sleep away from them.

"Show me."

"Very well. Just hum along for now, sing with me." He said, and resumed the melody.

Meng Yao joined him quietly, and slowly the buzz of Qi that flowed under his skin spread out between them, flowing into Meng Yao's veins as he opened his meridians for him.

The sleepy, warm wave of energy molded itself to Meng Yao's much thinner one, guiding it into the correct movement.

It thrummed softly to the vibrations of his voice, shifting along with every note, and in this manner affected change upon the body and the elements.

He had read in some obscure volume of the forbidden library that every element of the natural world had to it some vibration, some noticeable and some not, which was the true source of any musical cultivator's power.

The entire world was born of notes played on the strings of a qin. Every part of nature thrummed softly to inaudible songs, each of them unique.

Slowly, A-Huan ceased his singing, letting Meng Yao carry the tune for them both, his eyes now closed in concentration. Then, some moments later, he slowly withdrew his flow of Qi and left Meng Yao to maintain both the movement and the humming alone.

He faltered once, and so A-Huan resumed the singing, until the vibrations he felt from Meng Yao's golden core, pressed close against his from the way they lay together, were even and steady.

A-Yao's eyelids were heavy now, closing even as he maintained his focus, and so A-Huan pressed his lips to his forehead and said it was enough, and that he had done well.

He placed his arm more comfortably around A-Yao and carried on the tune, watching him drift off to sleep and holding him through the night, committing every line of his face to memory.

He was still humming softly when dawn broke through the window, when he pulled the covers up over their heads so they might stay like this for an hour longer.

Breathing softly against his chest, A-Yao did not wake.

For the first time in all their nights sleeping next to each other, watching his face with the irrational fear that the breathing would stop, that he too would be cruelly and inexplicably taken from him, A-Yao's brow was clear and smooth, without a single crease of worry.

He slept until morning and did not mumble from nightmares, or wake at the first creak of wood, ready to hide or flee.

For the first time since they had shared a bed, fearful, orphans of the war, they had a peaceful night, burrowed in each other.

Lan Xichen opened his eyes, back in cloud recesses, pitiful and filled with longing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! Tell me what you thought, what you liked, what you hated, if i have a hand fetish (yes), if this was too long (also yes), etc.
> 
> I'm considering also writing a prequel to this if anybody's interested. Basically i see them having spent almost all their time on the run as "friends that are so disgustingly close everyone thinks they're in love already"
> 
> Kinda like "ask(ancient)reddit: my travel companion and I are really good friends, he rescued me from dying in a ditch and hid me in his home and we share everything including beds and bathtubs sometimes. At night i hold him close and stroke his hair until he falls asleep. Will he strike me across the face if i give him a comb?" And everyone in the replies is calling him a fucking idiot. A-Yao should know better but he's somehow 100% convinced LXC is a straight chad who fucks. 
> 
> 😂this is how they ended up from "crying" to "making out" and didn't stop to question it (already basically acting like lovers for 5 months).
> 
> I really struggled with the musical cultivation thing cause. Maybe this is just me being bad at research but i couldn't find out just how exactly you're supposed to cultivate using music, so i threw some bastardized string theory in there because why not. Anyone well versed in chinese culture and wuxia is free to give it to me in the comments if i got something wrong.
> 
> Thank you for reading!🤗


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, originally i thought this would be three pretty long chapters with cohesive parts and good planning but now im at the stage where the story does what it wants and i the fool simply follow. 
> 
> Shorter chapters means more frequent updates and that means i don't know how long this is going to be. Hope this will still be satisfactory.
> 
> Warning for uh. Sadness and bad sexual decisions i guess.

  
There had been something heavy in his countenance when Lan Xichen first spotted him on the battlefield. Another stone in his pockets, since the last time he'd seen him. Possibly more.

He seemed larger than everything in the landscape, disappearing behind every hill paces and paces away, dozens of fighting soldiers between them.

A-Yao had not seen him.

He could barely make out his face at this distance, unrecognizable in the grey robes of the Wen, but he could not mistake the gait, impossibly light even when he was running, even when his shoulders seemed bent by a weight greater than his frame.

The past few months, without his will or input, Lan Xichen's eyes had searched every corner, every crowd, every new arrival for that gait, even as he knew he wouldn't find it. Disappointment needling into his heart a thousand times a day.

And so it had been like a spark of warm flame to a near-frozen limb, to see him, exceedingly painful, when had it arrived sooner it would have provided relief.

He was afraid now, because A-Yao was there and he was alive, a good twenty paces away. Far enough to die out of reach. There were men dying all around him, arrows flying and the spark of swords. He may have survived this long only so he could be killed in front of him.

Then a blade came at him and he was forced to turn away, and once he did he could not bring himself to look again.

Lan Xichen grit his teeth against the overwhelming scent of blood he was cutting through, again and again. There was always more. Muscles burning, sweat rolling down into his eyes. And he never seemed to get any closer.

 _We are losing this war._ he thought, as he swung once more, kicked a corpse off his sword to free the blade and turned around to make another.

\-----

Once a fortnight, was the agreed frequency of the communications. About once a fortnight. It was difficult to be regular when one was being watched.

Among the flock of crows, vultures and shrikes that perpetually adorned the highest levels of scorching sun palace, there was a traitor.

A certain species of bird was domesticated specially by the Wen, for the express purpose of fast communication. They were kept in an aviary, every caretaker closely vetted and heavily watched. The goings on of communication were Qishan Wen's greatest weakness.

It would not be possible for A-Yao, no matter how well he did, to ever be allowed anywhere close to the aviary.

Which was why their crow did not reside in it.

It looked very much like one of the undomesticated species that fed on scraps and mice around the palace, ones that served no purpose but that were too much work to get rid of.

But it was close enough, in the air, to the personal messengers of the Wen clan. Close enough to blend in with the flocks that left the towers at regular schedules as to not be shot down in flight.

And so, every two weeks, when the report was late (which was often), Lan Xichen would use great effort not to go down the list of everything that might have gone wrong.

Something as idiotic as their bird being eaten on the way by an animal. Or killed in the courtyard even, by children throwing stones or soldiers practicing their arrows.

The bird may have died of exhaustion on the way, A-Yao may have been too closely watched to properly feed it without suspicion.

It may have never left Qishan, this month's workload being too heavy for A-Yao to slip away and write a note.

Or the bird may have been discovered. The messages it carried may have been read.

A-Yao may have been found out.

Once that thought slipped into his mind he would have to get up and busy himself, because this was as far as his mind was allowed to go.

Pointless worrying was a liability, in wartime. No use grieving someone who wasn't known to be dead (how long would it take for him to know? Weeks? Months? Years? Would he ever know? Would he be forced to give up hope by the too long passing of time and grieve nothing, no body or cause or time, like the war widow that had sheltered them for a night, in exchange for A-Yao giving her news of the front?)

He walked briskly to the guest quarters that had been assigned to the Lan in Qinghe, and sat down at his desk to look over this month's supplies account for the fourth time, checking, once more, that all was in order and every number was in place.

His brother could be heard from the courtyard. Not his voice, but the singing of his sword as he practiced, drilling forms to the point of exhaustion every single day, only pausing to join in instructing the disciples at their own practice, then resuming his own, and not stopping until the sun had set.

The perfect sword form of one man was not the key to winning a war, he knew. He knew too, that Wangji was not thinking of winning the war when he swung his sword fifteen thousand times a day.

He was only thinking of his anger, and trying not to sink under the weight of it. Neither of them had been taught a better way, and so Lan Xichen took on most of his duties and did not disturb him.

But even this was not enough to occupy every minute, take up all his thoughts so he had none to spare for what _could_ happen, what _might_ have happened already, all the things that he knew to have happened before. What he could not, if he was to remain useful to the war effort, think about under any circumstance. Enough work to do that he may keep from sinking.

The truth was that many aspects of war involved long periods of waiting and inefficiency. They were not on the move yet, not yet attacking strongholds or moving troops. They were still only gathering strength, bringing in alliances. Gathering information through their spies.

And all of it was slow and lasted a long time. The greatest of their task was to remain upright under the weight of empty time. It could not properly be called rest. For all involved, the time spent unoccupied was the most exhausting part of their day.

He got up to go see if Mingjue might have a task for him.

-

Mingjue was not in the throne room. He was restless too, practicing with his men. His voice could be heard over his sword as he shouted every command, followed by the grunts of his soldiers.

Lan Xichen approached the window and watched them.

It was undeniably beautiful, the raw strength with which they moved; power making use of bodies rather than bodies making use of power. Nothing like the controlled sparring of the Lan.

Nie Mingjue, leading their movements, was the most unearthly of them all. He didn't look like a man when he wielded his saber. There was no body at all, only movement. Only the rushing wind whistling behind the blade.

When he saw him like this, Lan Xichen was a child again, meeting the heir of Nie for the first time. A young boy, starry eyed, trailing behind his older, stronger and more accomplished friend.

He had, for much of his childhood, looked up to Mingjue as his example of honor and upright conduct.

He had once thought of the two of them marching side by side into battle as a glorious thing. Mingjue leading the charge, himself his most trusted general, covering his back, defending his few weak spots.

They used to speak of it together in hushed, wondrous tones, when they were young enough not to know their loyalty to each other could never come before their loyalty to their sects. That soon they would be driven apart by responsibility.

Young enough still to talk of ridiculous plans, only entertained by the reasonable heir of Lan because it was the courageous heir of Nie who had proposed it, of taking their horses in the middle of the night and riding until dawn to slay the many-headed beast that terrorized the village below, and becoming heroes together.

Mingjue had whispered it to him, his beardless face bright orange in the candlelight, having snuck into his guest room in Qinghe, and Lan Huan had nodded sagely as though it was the most natural thing to do. Of course they would steal horses and become heroes, it was perfectly sensible. It was perfectly sensible to be up now, hours past the time any Lan should have been sleeping, to talk endlessly of nonsense.

In the end they had both drifted off into sleep, too tired from journeying and training and speaking to slay any monsters, and they had been scolded the next day. Lan Xichen remembered it with fondness even now.

Then he had caught up to him in height, and in responsibility, and rather than a taller tree, he realized Nie Mingjue was a mirror.

The two of them orphans, eldest sons, leaders before their time. The two of them more symbols than men, raised to be so by their powerful proud sects. The two of them impossibly alone under that weight. The two of them, suffocating.

The two of them having loved Meng Yao.

Perhaps soon they would both have lost him.

So when he had laid his eyes on Mingjue again, after his months in hiding, rather than ask "How could you do it? Send him away? What happened, what kind of man are you?", he saw his eyes, and the mirror that was in them, and his question became "Will I send him away too?"

Now when he asked "How could you do it?" He meant "How can I not?"

How could a man ever know his own heart?

Had Mingjue too promised A-Yao his friendship, whispered it to him in the dark of his bed, and only forgotten it by morning?

Was this his future? Angry, resentful Mingjue, who had forsaken his beloved in a fit of righteousness?

He could see Mingjue was wounded by it. It was not a lack of love in his heart that had led to this.

Lan Xichen recalled the way he once spoke of A-Yao. The pride in his eyes when he recalled his accomplishments.

Mingjue had loved him as well as he did.

It was a wound of betrayal that Mingjue chose to nurse in his breast. Easier to bear than regret.

In the courtyard, Mingjue turned and looked up at him. His eyes smiled even as his face did not, and Lan Xichen staggered.

Nie Mingjue bade him join them, and so he did.

\---

The repetitive movements numbed the soul and exhausted the limbs. It was the best one could get in their circumstances.

But escaping the hell of his mind only placed him in the hell of his body.

If he were to be given a choice, Lan Xichen preferred the first.

With each movement, more and more, as he became aware of every ache and burning muscle, he noticed a different kind of pain. The loneliness, strangely, was located somewhere in his bones.

The homesickness, the grief, the worry. He could feel it when he moved now. Every deep breath screamed with pain. There was no cure for this illness, he had always thought.

In his childhood, when his body began hurting with the need to be held, the mourning of his mother, the friendlessness and misery, it served only to teach him to endure.

Like many other things, it could not be changed.

There was no use fighting the wind. Where solid trees were broken under the force of it, pliable reeds submitted and survived.

Neither reeds nor trees could escape and take shelter. They were rooted in the soil, placed there and tended to carefully by wiser, older hands. They could resist or submit, and that was all.

Then, one day, A-Yao had taken the reed tenderly between his palms and shielded it from the wind with his body, just for a night.

Lan Xichen had not longed for it before.

Now it was only another ache he had to suffer through.

"Xichen."

He stopped his movements abruptly.

The crowd of soldiers was gone, and Lan Xichen hadn't even noticed. He'd simply kept drilling, going through each step with automatic precision, rote memory.

Mingjue placed a hand on his shoulder and Lan Xichen could have recoiled from the way it burned. His hand was so heavy that it settled something in him. Grounded him where he had been undefined and floating apart.

"Enough for today, Xichen. Go and wash. Come see me once you're done, we have news."

Something had happened, then. Something to do.

He walked away from Mingjue's heavy hand, and returned to his ghostly state for another hour.

\----

When it was only the two of them, they dispensed with courtesy. They did not bother to sit on opposite sides of a table, or serve the appropriate kind of tea. They expediated everything.

"The Ouyang clan agreed to join our cause, one of their emissaries will arrive tomorrow with part of their troops, which means we'll need to account for them in our census."

Mingjue's hair was still wet, damp tresses framing his face, leaving droplets of water on the collar of his robe.

"How many men will join the fortress? Our provisions are growing thin."

"Ouyang will provide for themselves. Their leader pledged his wealth as well as his men"

He carefully unrolled a map on the wood of his desk.

"With them on our side we'll have enough to attack Wen Xu's division. They are travelling towards the west, isolated. We'll have enough to set a trap.''

Lan Xichen looked up, feeling a fire ignite in his chest.

This was it, the war was finally starting.

He met Mingjue's eyes and saw that same fire reflected in them. The intensity rooted him to the ground.

"Very well.'' Lan Xichen said. ''Once the Ouyang clan arrive we'll call a meeting with the others and propose it. You'll have the Lan's backing."

Mingjue nodded.

"We need to start drafting details right now. There's no time to lose."

He saw Mingjue move behind him, toward his cabinet. He pulled out quills, ink, paper and a jar of white wine.

Mingjue placed them all on the small, low table, there to serve tea to intimate guests, and sat cross legged on the floor, settling in for a night of work.

Lan Xichen joined him worldessly as Nie Mingjue made room for him on the short table.

They drafted a rough map of the area they would be manning, made accounts of the weaknesses and strengths in the landscape.

When Nie Mingjue took a swig of the jar, he turned to ask if Lan Xichen wished to call for tea.

Instead, Lan Xichen took the jar from his hand and drank from it in turn.

He put it back on the table, then took up his drafting again.

For a few seconds, Mingjue stared at him, expressionless.

Then he got up, returned to his desk and fetched another jar.

Mingjue placed it, unopened, on the ground next to them and returned to his work.

They spent the first half of the night like this, side by side, slowly elaborating their strategy and taking turns drinking from the same jar.

\-------

Finally, there came a point in the night when Lan Xichen was too drunk to keep working.

He placed his pen down and closed his eyes.

Alcohol did not diminish pain, it only reminded him of a time that had now ended. A name that he was no longer called.

It only further opened up the void of loneliness in his heart, spreading it to his fingertips, running through his veins like millions of skittering feet.

"Xichen?"

Just like before, a heavy hand keeping him rooted to the ground.

Lan Xichen opened his eyes and looked at him.

"You're not well." It was a statement, Mingjue didn't have to ask.

"I did not find it so hard before.'' He answered, and closed his eyes.

He wondered how Mingjue survived it.

"Me either." Answered Mingjue, and though he was not a subtle man, and disliked vague talks, this one time he understood him, and did not ask for clarification.

Instead, he squeezed his hand a little tighter, and though it was not very hard, it was hard enough for Lan Xichen to break under it.

Mingjue caught him, and kept all his pieces from scattering. Kept him solid with the weight of his hands, his body.

Lan Xichen let himself be held.

Like this, he recalled the time they had gone night hunting together as boys, when Lan Xichen had broken his leg and they'd gotten separated from the rest of their party.

The rain was falling so hard that they could no longer fly, only hide from the storm.

It was then that Lan Xichen noticed Mingjue was no longer just a boy slightly older than him, but a man, with a man's strength of spirit and solidity of heart.

Real stubble appeared on his chin where Lan Xichen had nothing but a light downy fuzz. Nie Mingjue his friend had become Nie Mingjue his senior, and though he did not understand back then just what it was he felt, when Mingjue's rough hands carefully tended his wound, he did know he wanted them kept there.

Of course it was improper to say it, though he had not quite known why.

He knew now what it had meant, to want someone's rough hands to be kind with his body.

He remembered, too, how Mingjue had looked at him, from where he was kneeling at his feet, and realized that he should have said it, even if it was improper.

That Nie Mingjue, with his two more years of experience would have known to hold his face and carefully peel off his clothes, and they could have laid together in the moss, far better than they were now, on the floor of a war room with the taste of misery and alcohol between their teeth, and another man between their hearts.

A-Yao was there, undeniably, and even closer than the wine. In every scrape of Mingjue's teeth against his lips, every press of his hands, he wondered about him, whether he had been kissed this way too, held like this, pressed hard into the floor until he'd felt himself unwind, if he'd wanted to beg for more, too, if he'd loved it just as much.

In this moment, he felt himself a little bit closer to A-Yao's own particular brand of misery, as he scrambled to get out of his clothes and wound his hands into Mingjue's still damp hair, bared his throat and offered himself.

Unlike A-Yao, who had been so hesitant, Mingjue was not afraid to take him. Perhaps the wine had helped. He ran his hands down his sides and placed his mouth on his chest, and Lan Xichen wondered if he had done the same to A-Yao.

It was A-Yao's voice that was coming out of his mouth now, his flesh that was shivering with impatience. Mingjue kissed the hard pebble under his lips, then grazed it with his teeth, and it was A-Yao who squirmed under the torture, struggled between the urge to escape it and the urge to take Mingjue's face between his hand and keep him there, sucking and biting until the tender skin was raw and bruised.

He whined until Nie Mingjue opened his belt and pulled his trousers off of him, leaving him humiliatingly bare, his shoulders and arms still covered by his robe, the rest of him open to the cool air.

Had A-Yao, too, ever been almost naked like this, on a hard, cold floor, drunk off of white wine and lust?

Mingjue pulled his own trousers down just enough, and Lan Xichen wondered if A-Yao had been this breathless before it. He opened his mouth, A-Yao's mouth, to receive another bruising kiss and the relief of Mingjue's heavy body on his, as Mingjue rubbed himself against him and squeezed their cocks together with his hand.

Lan Xichen sobbed with it even as he pushed his hand off, because he knew, suddenly, with certainty that Mingjue had never done A-Yao this courtesy. That their sex always involved A-Yao quivering, laying still and clenching his teeth as Mingjue pierced into him like a sword, ignoring the pain, the wrongness of it when Mingjue went too deep, not gently enough, enduring the minutes until it felt good, until it felt right, until he could wrap his legs around him and kiss him without tears.

Lan Xichen wanted that. He wanted to be taken exactly the same way, and so he wrapped his legs around him and put his mouth to Mingjue's ear, and asked him if he would.

"What would you do if I were your servant?" He whispered in between kisses to his temple, breathless, and he realized that he had sounded too much like him in this moment, when Mingjue froze under his mouth.

"You are not my servant Xichen." He said, a slight horror in his voice, pulling back to look at his face and brush a strand of hair from his forehead. "You should not say such things."

Lan Xichen looked up at him and wondered what it would be like to have this man throw him out of Qinghe to starve in the streets, right now, with his body bare and his heart raw in the open.

He was bleeding with it, with the reality that he could never know, he could never understand, and suddenly he couldn't stand that Mingjue was not inside of him yet.

Mingjue looked down at him, at his flushed body, and kissed his mouth with a painful restraint.

Lan Xichen understood now the way Mingjue found him beautiful, had found him beautiful for years now, when they had left childhood behind and shot up like reeds together.

He wanted to, this was why he looked so pained. He could see it: Mingjue wanted him on his stomach, wanted to lift his hips, push his face to the ground and mount him like cattle.

He had wanted to since the moment he had looked up from Lan Xichen's broken leg and realized Xichen was beautiful and no longer a child. And it pained him so because Mingjue's heart was tender for him, and because he held him in such high esteem. Because he could not bear to treat his friend the way he had treated a servant.

A subordinate.

A vice general.

A son of a whore.

Lan Xichen felt tears sting behind his eyes. He wanted A-Yao there. He wanted to hold him and beg for his forgiveness.

Lan Xichen squeezed his legs tighter and took Nie Mingjue's ear between his teeth lightly. And he began to beg, mouthing softly at his jaw.

The words were alien to his mouth. They were not said in his voice. He twisted and enticed and he felt A-Yao's hands in Mingjue's flowing hair, and Mingjue felt them too, because he grabbed his wrists and pulled them off, and looked at Lan Xichen with real pain in his face.

Mingjue sat up and left him untethered, without the securing mass of his body, and Lan Xichen could now only see himself, and what he had just been doing.

For a long time, neither of them said anything.

Then, slowly, carefully, Mingjue pulled Xichen to sit. He arranged his robe back around his shoulders, brushed the hair from his jaw, fixed the braids that he had undone. There were tears in his eyes, a wrinkle in his brow.

He got up to arrange his own clothes and pulled Xichen to his feet.

"You should go and sleep for a while. Wear off the wine." He said, his voice strangely weak for a man so strong, and loosely held his hand.

Lan Xichen was too drunk to cry in this moment, so he put his trousers back on, his shoes, and let Mingjue guide him to his bed.

\-----------

He spent the night motionless, overcome with self-disgust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, leave a comment tell me what you liked and what you hated, whether it was cold today and what you had for breakfast, etc And if you want to tell me about your breakfast in even more detail or just chat about anything, my twitter is @sufjan_cats. Until next time❤


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is even shorter but im posting two at once so that makes up for it? Maybe? Im getting addicted to that short chapter format...soon i'll be updating one word at a time.

He woke at dawn the next day. The inside of his head felt pulled back to the ground by a rope when he tried to sit up.

He should have burned off the alcohol, expelled it from his body, but the pain and nausea felt deserved.

There was no punishment awaiting his actions. That was his first coherent thought.

He was not in cloud recesses. Morality, punishment and repentance were his own responsibility here.

He realized he didn't know what to do.

For months and months he had disregarded the wall of rules. Circumstances made it necessary.

But now for the first time his head felt muddled, his sense of right and wrong disturbed.

Lan Xichen, heir of cloud recesses, had disregarded the rules, many of them, and yet nothing had happened.

No one had come at him with a whip. No one had reported him to the elders. He was the sect leader now, though he felt less worthy of the title now than he had even as a child. And no one was permitted to strike the sect leader in the courtyard like a child.

He was alone with his misdeeds.

-

-

Not fully alone, as it turned out, as Mingjue slowly opened the door, looking in tentatively.

Lan Xichen did not acknowledge him, the weight of shame keeping him completely immobile, as though at the bottom of the ocean, under so much water he could barely even blink.

Mingjue made it to his bed in three large, powerful strides, but as he sat down upon it he was tentative again. Careful. There was a jar in his hand.

"Xichen. How are you feeling?" Lan Xichen tried opening his mouth, but his body did not obey him. He could not ignore the throbbing in his head long enough to do anything about the paralysing shame.

He could only turn and look at him, and when Mingjue saw what was in his eyes, his hand shot up to cradle his face, thoughtlessly.

He caught himself before it landed and put his hand back.

"You should drink some water.'' He said, handing him the jar.

Lan Xichen took it, he could do this much at least, and the coolness of the water on his dry throat felt like a mercy he should have refused, clearing his mind and relieving his body, only a little.

"Mingjue-xiong." He said, mouth still dry and tasting foul, as Mingjue leaned closer instinctively. "Last night I behaved improperly. I deserve no forgiveness, but dare ask it of you anyway."

"Xichen, don't..." Mingjue seemed embarrassed. He wasn't in that state often, but when he was, the words often failed him. He placed his hand over Lan Xichen's, who had to fight against the impulse to snatch it back. "You shouldn't feel ashamed."

How could he not? Lan Xichen had betrayed two men at once, two men he loved, by muddling them in this way. He lacked the practical experience to take apart and explain what it was exactly he had done, but he knew that it had been exceptionally selfish.

 _'I took myself for your lover, after taking your lover for myself.'_ Described one aspect of it.

 _'I wanted you to take me for your lover, so that you would take me like your lover.'_ Was another.

' _I wish I could be more like him and less like you.'_

His head was throbbing. He was ashamed.

He opened his eyes and looked at Mingjue, miserable.

Mingjue answered by taking his face between his hands and kissing him again, as though it would solve anything. As though he was making it better and not worse.

The kiss was chaste and gentle, accepting rather than demanding, but Lan Xichen wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him down onto the bed, and this time he did not have the alcohol to soothe him, the thoughts of A-Yao to distract him, the temporary shamelessness that would make it good, make it anything but self punishment, but wallowing in his own misery.

After much hesitation, long moments of his mouth and his tongue coaxing him, heating him slowly, Mingjue finally moved his hand between them, to dip under his clothes.

Lan Xichen could not extricate the pleasure from the misery, every wave washing over him like the sea, disgustingly sweet. He would have wanted to make a small space away from it, he knew he owed it to his friend, a small box around them where shame could not get in for the time being, because it did not belong in here with them, like he had done with A-Yao.

But it did belong, it did belong, was the truth, and he could not fight it. Do not be promiscuous, said the wall of cloud recesses. Be of one mind. Love and respect yourself.

Shame belonged there, dripping slow like honey over the warm places where their bare skin almost touched.

Lan Xichen was sullying them both with his wrecked mind and wavering heart, and so he held on tighter to Mingjue's shoulders and mouthed apologies against his ear, as Mingjue brought him closer, without giving him what he really wanted. He would not be spreading Lan Xichen's legs, he would not be taking him, not this time either. It was no use to beg.

Mingjue's hand was too rough, his movements too desperate, they wouldn't be enough, so Lan Xichen scrambled to get him out of his clothes and pressed the two of them together, wrapped his legs around him and rolled his hips upwards to meet him, to give this some kind of completion, some kind of an end.

It was so frustrating he dug his nails in, leaving little red moons into the skin of Mingjue's neck, who was undressing him to kiss his bare shoulder.

 _'You should have done this to me earlier. I might have refused you, then.'_ he thought. But he knew if he said it Mingjue might stop.

Mingjue's teeth closed over his skin, making him jolt, and suddenly the weight and the friction was enough. It was enough just to have that desperate weight and clumsy hand. He barely needed anything to come, and the thought was mortifying.

Even in this state, nauseous, head throbbing with regret and self pity, at dawn in a bed given out of charity, being pressed down by a friend he should have loved far too much to take advantage of like this, he could still come. Easily even.

He could still want to come, more than he wanted to do right, more than he wanted to hide his face and cry.

He hooked his arms under Mingjue's, pressing on his back, keeping him close, and Mingjue came before he did, staining them both.

Lan Xichen sobbed when he followed suit, throwing an arm over his face to cover his eyes.

Then blessed relief. Blinding white, nothingness, just for a few seconds.

When he came to, Mingjue was sat next to him, holding his hand between both of his, rubbing his thumb over his knuckles. Lan Xichen looked up at the ceiling and saw the ridges in the wood, like eyes looking down on him.

"You should eat, you're pale. Haven't you burned off the wine?"

Lan Xichen closed his eyes and shook his head slightly.

"I won't."

Mingjue took a while to answer. Although he could not see him, Lan Xichen knew a wrinkle had appeared in between his brows.

Outside, birds hand landed on the windowsill, chirping, shrill, piercing gossip.

"Why is that?" He said softly, as softly as his gruff voice could manage.

"There is no other punishment I can receive for this." He lay perfectly calm and pictured the shrill songbird flying into the room to peck out his eyes, only so it could get at his brain and drill into it all the better.

"Xichen..." he said, and once more the words failed him. His hand hovered over the edge of his brow then dropped, defeated. Instead, Mingjue came to lie beside him, motionless, only their arms touching.

Lan Xichen remembered his state of undress, the half-tugged off sleeve uncovering his shoulder and the trousers he hadn't bothered to pull back up.

"Times of war are a perpetual battlefield. You have enough wounds on yourself not to need to make more." Mingjue said, and did not look at him. He slid his hand against Lan Xichen's, who twined their fingers together.

For some time, he said nothing.

"Should there be no consequences then, for men who do wrong?" He said, and his tone was slightly sharp.

That Mingjue, Chifeng-zun, seemed to ask him to disregard punishment, made something cold and slippery twist in his stomach.

"There should. Of course." He struggled for a moment with the contradiction. "But there are different wrongs. Different degrees. Different circumstances. "

Circumstances?

His whole body was slowly turning cold. He had not heard it from Mingjue's mouth, the story of how it had happened, and suddenly he was afraid to.

"The rules of cloud recesses are important." Said Mingjue, sounding as though he were placating a child. "Breaking them is wrong. Is it not enough to acknowledge it and decide it will not happen again?" Another moment passed, where neither said anything.

"Is it?" Lan Xichen felt himself unable to move. "It isn't the first time I've broken them. I don't think it will be the last."

"Some of these rules are impractical. You cannot follow them all when you are out in the world.''

"Why do you keep on making excuses for me?" He said, turning his head to face him, and his voice was calm and even, although his mind was not. "You are sect leader Nie, known for his impartial justice. Who else do you make excuses for? When others have done wrong, are you not quick with your rage and condemnation? Having broken my own sense of morality, am I not a man to mistrust?"

"No.'' Answered Mingjue, and it was infuriatingly steady. "You are a good man. I know you well."

"Mingjue-xiong, you don't know which rules I've broken." His voice was perfectly flat. "I could have taken a life."

Mingjue squeezed his hand softly and turned to look at him.

"You wouldn't have done so without a good reason."

Lan Xichen removed his hand from Mingjue's grasp and left it to rest on his stomach, noticing with that movement how sick and nauseous he felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Leave a comment and follow me on twitter @sufjan_cats❤


	4. Chapter 4

"Nightless city adding another 50 men to the palace guard, reason unknown. Sect Leader has repeated nightmares, constitution is fraying since death of Wen Xu. Have gotten closer. Wen heading north with 5'000 soldiers.

Enclosed copy of the formation map.

In my room tonight the light is very dim." 

  
The message had come, late, again but it was here. They were always late now. Lan Xichen clutched it between his hands, just for a moment, before folding it and tucking it into his sleeve. 

More than the precious information, the drawing, it was the last sentence that lingered in his mind. 

It was code, of course. 

There was a poem they both knew by heart, Lan Xichen from his education, Meng Yao from his days of inconsistent schooling, when he was a boy. 

His mother had wanted to make him a gentleman, and taught him what scraps of literature, poetry and science she could snatch from the mouth of her visitors, or overhear on the few occasions she visited palaces or mansions to entertain. 

A-Yao had told him that story early in their friendship, when they had time to pass in a small, dusty room, their hiding place for that week. They'd sat with their backs against the grainy, uneven wall, with the fiery light of dusk creeping up to their feet, making the ugly room appear as luxurious and molten-gold as any bedroom in Jinlintai. 

A-Yao had spoken of his mother with a cornered, dangerous look in his eyes. Like a wild cat cautiously showing its belly, ready to claw and bite and tear at the first threat, expecting to have to retract its vulnerability and kill and run.

Whatever Meng Yao had feared from him, it did not come to pass, and the tense line of Meng Yao's shoulders had softened slightly after that. Permanently so.

They had amused themselves reciting everything they could remember, and A-Huan had been in awe at how precise Meng Yao's memory could be. Every poem A-Huan told him, he could recite immediately. 

Some of the ones he knew from before were incorrect, it was clear they had been taught this way. A-Huan hesitated in correcting him, but in seeing his face Meng Yao immediately understood.

"This one has had imperfect teachings. If some of the poems or sayings are wrong, please tell me so. It isn't so bad to be embarrassed in front of you."

Even back then, his heart had filled with an unfamiliar glow. He had never been told such a thing. On the contrary, most people found it far worse to appear in an unflattering light if he happened to be in the room. 

It was a testament to good character, of course, but until this moment he had never realized how lonely it had made him.

So A-Huan had him recite the poems again, told him which ones were correct and which ones were wrong, adding a word of praise for his quick memory, then teaching him new ones, exhausting every idiom and piece of literature he could remember.

A-Yao's eyes were shiny with excitement, to be displaying his skill just for the fun of it. And under A-Huan's unending amazement and praise, he slowly melted until he was almost glowing with pride, his posture completely changed, preening as he amused them both, by recounting every single rule on the wall of cloud recesses having passed it only once. 

Then, after A-Huan had run out of poems, Meng Yao turned to him mischievously and said it was his turn, now, to learn idioms by heart, before enunciating, with the same reverent tone he had held for the poetry, a dirty joke that made Lan Xichen laugh so hard A-Yao had to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet.

But A-Yao was laughing too, silently, pinching his lips together and smiling, and once Lan Xichen had calmed down it took very little coaxing to get him to tell another, and another.

Then A-Huan tried his best to learn and repeat them, and now it was Meng Yao's turn to laugh much too hard. The golden light had crept up all the way to their heads by now, and they both had to hold their hands up to shield their eyes from the late afternoon sun. 

Lan Xichen waited behind a tent, a few feet away from Nie Mingjue's council room, taking a second to wipe the smile off his face.

What was relevant was the one poem in particular that they had chosen, much later, to use as a signature. 

"Men have sorrow and joy; they part or meet again;

The moon is bright or dim and she may wax or wane.

There has been nothing perfect since the olden days.

So let us wish that man

Will live long as he can.

Though miles apart, we’ll share the beauty she displays."

  
At the end of the first letter, A-Yao had ended his message with a sentence containing the character "man" (人). The following letter with the character "have" (有)，and so on, every following letter. In this way, Lan Xichen could tell that it was indeed A-Yao who had sent the letter, would know if one particular letter had gotten lost, and exactly which one.

He could put the letters in order and see how the situation evolved, without any numbers that would give the exact quantity of communications away if A-Yao were to be caught.

This way, it was also impossible for someone else to fake the letters. They might realize there was a coded message, but A-Yao would not carry more than one letter on him at one time. They would not be able to crack it. A-Yao when pressed would give an incorrect one and Lan Xichen would know and act accordingly.

If ever a letter arrived, signed with a character from "The sad Zither", then Lan Xichen would know A-Yao was lost. 

  
"Why should the sad zither have fifty strings,

Each string, each strain evokes but vanished springs;

Dim morning dream to be a butterfly,

Amorous heart poured out in cuckoo’s cry.

In moonlit pearls see tears in mermaid’s eyes.

From sunburnt jade in Blue Field let smoke rise.

Such feeling cannot be recalled again,

It seemed lost even when it was felt then."

  
The appropriate melancholy of the poem twisted his heart. 

They had chosen well.

The first poem was recalled to him with each letter. It had taken a different, more personal quality now. Sometimes he recited it to himself in the night, and fell asleep imagining A-Yao's voice saying its words to him. 

"In my room tonight, the light is very dim." 

He held the sentence to his heart like a physical token.

Perhaps the room had not been truly dim, when A-Yao had written his last sentence, but it didn't really matter. It was a piece of him still, reaching out beyond duty and work, to Lan Xichen personally. It was information not related to war. 'I am alive. I am in a room, it is night. The light is dim, though it is not always the case. I exist somewhere in the world. I remembered this poem we both know, about being apart.' 

This was the sixteenth letter. It had been eight months since he had last seen him. 

He walked inside the tent and handed Nie Mingjue the formation map. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! ❤ the two poems in this chapter a real classical chinese poems. The first one is called "Remembering Su Zhe on the mid-autumn festival" by an author named Su Shi, a poet of the song dynasty, and the second is "The Sad Zither" by Li Shangyin, a Tang dynasty poet.
> 
> As for the dirty joke, i did have a limerick in mind but i don't know if ancient chinese people had an equivalent and so i left it out, but for those of you who want to know what A-Yao said that was so goddamn funny here it is.
> 
> "There once was a woman from Kew
> 
> Who filled her vagina with glue
> 
> She said with a grin
> 
> If they pay to get in
> 
> They'll pay to get out of it too."


	5. Chapter 5

On a battlefield, blades rusted terribly fast.

Hours of dipping it into fresh blood, from sunup to sundown, with no polishing, cleaning or sharpening often damaged and even broke the more fragile weapons.

Lan Xichen was weighed down by the layers of gore and dirt that covered him, stiffening the once-white fabric. He wanted to scratch his face, soothe the trickle of blood that ran down his jaw, but it would only add more. There was nothing he could do; his hands were the bloodiest part of him.

In the metal plates of a Wen's armor, he had seen his reflection.

He didn't look like a man anymore. The grime that covered his face had distorted and hidden everything but his eyes, white, detached, peering from a monstrous mask. All that was visible of his face shone through tear tracks.

He didn't realise he'd been crying. The white skin glowed like claw marks, like actor's paint.

Hours had passed, he didn't feel his body anymore. The aches were gone, the discomfort was gone, the itch, the dirt, the pain, the sorrow. All that was left was the swinging. The dirty blades. The resistance when he was cutting through bone.

Then he felt a cold sting on his arm, and thought he'd torn a muscle. Then he felt another, one on his hand, one on his forehead.

He was halfway to absolute terror before he realized it was the rain.

A strange quiet passed over the field. For what might have been half an instant, the soldiers and the dead, the wounded and the horses, all had gone quiet; stilled by the water, soothed at the thought of being finally clean.

Lan Xichen stood upright, and it felt like he was kneeling. The difference between his side and the other, the living and the dead, so clear and distinct only yesterday, had blurred in the mud. There was blood and sweat in his eyes, he couldn't see who was who. He could only feel, all around him, the desire to be laid to rest.

His side was losing, that had mattered to him once. Now he only wished defeat would come faster so they could all ease down.

He was tired. He longed for the horrible sight of a field after a war. The leagues of immovable bodies, the half burned flags and the wind whistling through them, a silent echo of the chaos it had once carried.

All else quiet.

And he would be among them, desarticulated and restful; and he would sleep, as the cleansing fires set by surviving peasants swept through the landscape.

The hilt slipped out of his hand. He let it fall.

There was no home left for his body to be buried. The ashes would be swept away by the wind and join those of his mother. Those of his home. Wherever ashes went when they were carried by the breeze.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head up to better feel the rain.

When the first blade slashed him open he did not feel its sting. Only the warm rivulets of blood running down his back, mingling with the cold rain.

He did not move. He simply waited for the second blow.

Then, after a long time, Lan Xichen opened his eyes. He saw the puppets, collapsed in a pile all around him. Every soldier still standing, sword in hand, stunned.

\-----

A-Yao had put an end to the war.

Lan Xichen had forgotten it was possible, for the war to end. He had secretly hoped, at most, that A-Yao would survive. That once Lan Xichen was dead, and his side defeated, A-Yao would stay well hidden and live.

It was a strangely discordant thought. 

Now he was shocked to find he had underestimated him.

Lan Xichen hadn't even tried to wish for victory.

For the first time, Lan Xichen felt that he was a coward.

And now A-Yao was here. He hadn't readied himself for it.

Lan Xichen was caked in blood and grime from head to toe. He wouldn't have stepped inside someone's home like this.

When he had first seen A-Yao in the distance, he'd kept himself from running, not out of a sense of propriety, but because, unrecognizable as he was, he might have been taken for an enemy. A monstrous, thrashing ghoul that had somehow maintained enough magic to keep fighting.

As he got closer to the center of activity ("...Meng Yao, you know, the Jin bastard, well he stabbed Wen Ruohan"..."Wei Wuxian was about to turn the tides with his yin tiger seal"..."...extraordinary! Who would have thought so..."), he found his brother, interrogating A-Yao with a grave look on his face.

"Wangji, he was the one who sent us the map." His brother turned and lowered his eyes, deffering to him and quickly moving on; he was much preoccupied with other things.

("Have you heard? Meng Yao was a spy all along?"..."No way! You mean it wasn't a betrayal?"..."Yes, yes, Zewu-Jun said so...")

A-Yao looked at him over the crowd and smiled the polite smile he wore in company.

It hadn't quite sunk in yet that A-Yao was here in person, flesh and blood that could move towards him. When his head began to dip, Lan Xichen realised what he was doing and caught the bow with his dirty hands.

A-Yao raised his head.

"Zewu-Jun." He said. "It is good to see you again.''

Lan Xichen returned his polite expression. Underneath, he was cracked open like an egg.

\----

Then Lan Xichen kneeled in the throne room of scorching sun palace with, on his lap, his lover of this past year, while A-Yao stood at his side, recounting to him what had led to Mingjue's injuries.

His eyes were wide and liquid, though the rest of his face was hard, there was a tremor in his fingers, where he held baxia with practiced care.

Lan Xichen wished they could talk about it.

But Mingjue was injured, they had other things to focus on. A real conversation would wait for later. Instead, they fell in step together, coordinated, as though they had parted yesterday. It was easy.

Mingjue stirred on his lap and Lan Xichen placed a cooling hand on his forehead. When Mingjue looked at him he quieted a bit. He was well used by now, to seeing his face when he woke up.

Then he raged. Grabbed his sword. Swung.

Lan Xichen thought 'Is this how he ends? Spared by the war to be killed by one who loved him?'

Lan Xichen was not sure which one of them he meant.

Afterwards, Nie Mingjue hobbled out of the war room, leaning his injured side on his sword like a walking stick, and he was neither of theirs anymore.

Lan Xichen remained, and held Meng Yao through the shakes that rattled his body, calming himself with the same gesture.

It was a reassurance, Meng Yao behind him. Meng Yao clutching his robes, Meng Yao in his arms. Meng Yao, trusting him enough to let him save his life.

He had grown thin, very slightly, since the last time they had met, but he felt infinitely heavier. As though the earth pulled him down with greater force than the rest of them. Perhaps it did.

Lan Xichen could barely hold him up, but he was grateful for that weight. He was so undeniably _there._

He tightened his arms around him and remembered the time before the war, when he had been afraid of holding him too tight, of trapping him. He did not have the strength to loosen his grip this time, not without Meng Yao ordering him to. Thankfully, Meng Yao didn't. He crushed him with the same desperation, so much so that breathing was difficult, expanding chest against expanding chest.

Lan Xichen felt the ridges of his bones with each ragged breath. Meng Yao was so small, like a bird, it was terrifying, to feel his shoulderblades poking out. He brushed one hand down his back and touched the flesh, the bone and sinew that ran under the fabric, the human weakness. He was more afraid of death now than he had been in all the months they were apart.

Then, slowly, both of their breathing evened, cooled. The warmth of Meng Yao's body was seeping through the fabric of his clothes, the scent of his skin, and he was alive in this way too.

Lan Xichen felt warmth in the places his hands laid upon Meng Yao's back. His chest and stomach, where Meng Yao rested. The snaking of Meng Yao's arms around his sides. It was almost burning him.

A few tears came to wet Meng Yao's hair. They said nothing. Did nothing. A real conversation would wait for later. For now, all they could do was come to terms with the fact that they both were still alive.

\------

The real conversation waited. Then it waited some more.

Meng Yao was whisked away by the Jin almost right away. He left his arms with a bow of gratitude and a look of fear, and the next time Lan Xichen saw him he was no longer Meng Yao.

He now walked into rooms with golden brocades and silks, and an official's hat, one meant to hide that out of all of Jin Guangshan's sons, he was by far the most beautiful.

Jin Guangyao trailed after his father everywhere he went. He always observed propriety, his speech was exact, his manners were irreproachable.

In their time on the run, Lan Xichen had forgotten about this side of him, how much it had charmed him on their first meeting.

Jin Guangyao seemed genuinely glad to see him, everytime they met. His speech was perfect, proper, but with his eyes he was always reaching for him.

Everytime he bowed, Lan Xichen caught him. It only fanned his excruciating need for touch; only highlighted the way all of Jin Guangyao was concealed under layers and layers of fine fabric.

The idea of A-Yao's bare forearms, once so often exposed, sleeves pinned back to dip into soapy water, now filled his face with heat. It seemed obscene now, for Jin Guangyao to show anything but his face and hands.

Lan Xichen thought of the apple of his throat, framed by the wings of his collar, no doubt it was meant to look respectable, conservative.

And it did. Yet...'Come kiss me here', the throat said.

Whose thoughts were these? Lan Xichen barely recognized them.

He thought of the thin, bony wrists that once peeked out of his sleeves, and wondered if they were still the same now. Even his hands, always shown, fluttering, bowing, carefully holding cups, had their effect.

Once, during a banquet, Lan Xichen observed those hands close over a pair of chopsticks, the fingers moving around it so delicately, and he was inexplicably reminded of what those hands were capable of doing, had already done, to him, and had to close his eyes and will away the violent reaction of his body.

He was ashamed of himself. He wondered if A-Yao would take offense.

Probably, yes. He had worked terribly hard for his position, this place of respect. Jin Guangyao had spent more than enough of his life being seen in this light.

Lan Xichen dug his nails into his palms and counted to ten, regretting terribly that Nightless City did not have a cold pond.

-

Lan Xichen sat down, and it was yet another banquet. He had lost track of them by now, and no doubt Nie Mingjue had too.

Nie Mingjue bent to refill his cup, another in a long line of reconciliary gestures.

They had not spoken. Not of this. So Nie Mingjue had not asked why Lan Xichen hadn't graced his bed since before the end of the war.

He had simply assumed. And as they had not spoken, Lan Xichen had no way to tell if he had assumed correctly.

Lan Xichen gracefully accepted the gesture. He bent and poured Mingjue some wine in turn, he smiled at him. They talked together of the banquet, of who was there, of their respective sects and their various problems. Their disagreements. They acted like friends again.

Lan Xichen did not return to Nie Mingjue's bed, and so Mingjue kept on conciliating.

\----

"Zewu-Jun, would you walk with me a while?"

Lan Xichen's heart jumped. They had not exchanged any words in private since the end of the war. There was simply too much to do, on both their sides. Jin Guangyao especially, was running himself ragged. He did not want to add to his burdens with his own demands for Jin Guangyao's time.

They took a turn of the ruins of Nightless City, pushing away rubble that ran under their feet with the same tranquil grace as two noblemen walking through fragrant gardens.

"I have entreated my father to take on the rebuilding of Cloud recesses. This morning, he agreed. He expects loyalty in return." Jin Guangyao turned to him, and the sudden closeness was destabilizing in this environment.

Cloud recesses. Rebuilt. He did not know Jin Guangyao had been entreating.

Lan Xichen felt odd thinking that some of this running in all directions had been for him. A mix of intense, fluttering pleasure and profound guilt. He had not asked for this, didn't know how to properly thank him.

Him, Jin Guangyao. It was not Jin Guangshan he owed his gratitude to, he knew, though it was to him he would need to grovel in public.

But his sect would have a home again. Jin Guangyao would give that to them.

"The Lan clan's debt to you will not be easily erased. A-Yao..." his mouth was suddenly dry. "Mine will never be. You are saving my people."

"Zewu-Jun." Jin Guangyao smiled at him and it was like before, the first time he had rescued him. "You once made me a promise that I would always have your friendship. I did not have any status then, with which I could return it.''

He paused, and looked at him, glowing with the pride of one newly recognized.

''I do now." Meng Yao said. "Zewu-jun, I am and will always be your friend."

Lan Xichen could not speak. He closed his eyes, put his hands together, and bent into a deep bow.

Jin Guangyao caught him, and held him up. When he opened his eyes again, Jin Guangyao's smile was far brighter than would ever be polite.

He let go of Lan Xichen, bade him goodbye, and left to attend yet more of his endless duties.

Lan Xichen remained for a while, watching the hem of his robes flutter away without another word or glance, heart hammering in his ears.

\-----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, leave a comment, tell me about anything, hope you had a nice day and everything is going well❤


	6. Chapter 6

Outside of the Hanshi, a mild autumn wind was blowing, whispering demands through half-constructed buildings.

Lan Xichen tipped the steaming pot of water over a pile of leaves that would once have been unacceptable to serve to a guest.

Things had changed, no matter how hard he tried to bring them back to what they were.

Jin Guangyao did not mind.

"I would drink plain water from my hands, with joy, if it was what Zewu-jun offered me." He said, when Lan Xichen apologized.

He wondered for a while if this was an excess of polite speech, or an expression of deep lovesickness.

He looked up at Jin Guangyao. It was both.

It had been a few months now, since they had met again. The anticipation and fluttering had mellowed. There had been no discussion(not for fault of trying, but it seemed Jin Guangyao's mastery of conversation extended into his ability to avoid them), it only became clear, through the way they spoke with glances, with movements sometimes, that this was as close as the two of them would get.

Jin Guangyao would walk no further, he gently but firmly established the distance between them.

And then, from this comfortable distance, he spoke of drinking freshwater from his own hands. He spoke of the moon, and how it recalled partings and meetings-again. He looked at Lan Xichen, and his eyes mellowed, as though it brought him rest. He rebuilt Lan Xichen's home and paid for the clothes on his back, at great cost to himself.

He spent most of his rare free time alone with Lan Xichen, but only on walks, only alone insofar as others could not hear them. It was rare for Jin Guangyao to sit with him in the Hanshi, like he did now.

Lan Xichen was there, like a plum on a tree, in reach, about to fall, and Jin Guangyao was simply watching it, waiting, placidly unwilling to reach out and pluck it.

So be it, then.

"The construction has progressed well. Are you satisfied with it?" Jin Guangyao asked. He often opened with this sentence.

Lan Xichen's expected reply was that he was, of course. The construction was going well, and he was satisfied, and so were his disciples, but he was tired of talking about construction.

He resented the empty words, when there were so many things unsaid between them. He wanted to reply 'Why are you alone with me today? You haven't been alone with me since scorching sun, when I held you. What does it mean, that you avoid me? Just tell me. You don't have to hold me again, just tell me. Just say something and make it clear. At night I think about you, and I wake up with loneliness filling me, like wine in a jug.'

He couldn't say this, either. He was a sect leader entertaining a political ally.

So instead, he nodded, and said nothing, and he saw Jin Guangyao was destabilized by it; and he was pleased, and ashamed that he was pleased, it was petty.

Zewu-Jun was never petty, but A-Huan was, sometimes.

"I must confess, I did not only come here to check on the construction's progress."

He had to be here to make good on what was owed him.

"I need a favor." 

Yes, of course he did.

Lan Xichen closed his eyes. He could have leveraged it for a conversation, but no, he owed him far too much.

"Anything at all, the Lan will endeavor to help."

"It is something I think only you can help me with, Zewu-Jun." He remembered the days when he was called A-Huan, and his stomach hurt from the longing. "I wish to be reconciled with Nie Mingjue."

Lan Xichen opened his eyes, surprised.

"You know how much he dislikes me, and he has reasons for it, of course, but...would not life be easier for both of us if we could shake hands and put the past behind? We are on the same side now, our clans are allies."

The last time he had seen Nie Mingjue, they had shared a meal in his quarters in Qinghe. Nie Mingjue had congratulated him on the renewal of his home, then leaned closer and, in a low voice, told him to be careful.

'Jin Guangyao was the one who offered it, wasn't he? I know you trust him, but you shouldn't. This is just a scheme to get your favor, and that of your clan's. Watch him.'

When Lan Xichen had asked him what he was to watch him for, Nie Mingjue had replied 'Just watch him.'

He pondered whether to tell him that Jin Guangyao had had more than his favor and loyalty, since well before they had parted for the war, or that he would not mistrust a friend based on vague menacing words, or that no matter the reason, Jin Guangyao was rebuilding his home, and it was more than anyone had ever done for him and his clan.

Instead, he played the diplomat, as he always did, said he would keep his advice in mind, and when the meal had been finished and the tea had been drunk, and they had moved on to less heart-wrenching topics, Nie Mingjue had placed a hand over his, and Lan Xichen had not pushed him away.

"I fear any attempt on my part to mend our relationship would be fruitless, but he listens to you. I think you are best suited for playing mediator between us."

Perhaps if Jin Guangyao knew they slept together, he wouldn't ask him.

Or maybe he would. Maybe he would see it as an asset. Lan Xichen considered telling him just to see. 'When you were in Nightless City risking your life, I spread my legs for him and begged him to touch me. It was nice. Sometimes I thought of you.'

Only sometimes.

"Reconciliation between allies is a desirable outcome for all. I promise you, I will put all my efforts to it." He smiled, a perfect mirror of Jin Guangyao's own face, smiles that were too exact, and poured him some more tea.

\------

One month later, the three of them were bowing together, swearing their brotherhood.

Jin Guangyao began calling him 'Er-Ge' right away, as though he had been waiting to do it. Every sentence, every greeting. 'Er-Ge'. He loved hearing it. No more Zewu-Jun.

The three of them sat together, just this once, as celebration of their new ties. Huaisang came up to him and bowed, and happily called him Er-Ge in turn. Every possible familial introduction was made.

At the end of the banquet, when the alcohol and eating and celebration had turned all the guests out of focus, a blurry mass of cheer and inattention, Jin Guangyao came up behind him, a little ways away from the crowd, and tugged lightly at his sleeve.

"Er-Ge" he said, cheeks red and eyes glazed from alcohol. "Thank you. Thank you for this." His smile was a little clumsy, too genuine and laughing, and his fingers remained hooked to the sleeve, even as Lan Xichen replied.

"This outcome was best for all of us.There is no need for thanks, A-Yao.'' It was appropriate enough a nickname, for a younger brother, and saying it after so long made something warm run up his spine. Jin Guangyao giggled at hearing it and his fingers tightened very slightly.

So Lan Xichen gently removed them, led him back to his seat, and apologized to everyone for leaving early.

He saw, behind him, that Mingjue and A-Yao were not fighting for once. A rare moment of peace, as they poured each other's drinks.

Once he reached his rooms, Lan Xichen opened the two jars that his brother had hidden under the floorboards, drank them, and fell asleep on the low table, his head between his arms.

He would apologize tomorrow.

\--------

He woke in the slowly rebuilding cloud recesses, over and over. Time passed. Cloud recesses stood tall and proud once again.

\-------

In the spring, Gusu dripped with apple blossoms.

There were few, within cloud recesses itself, as most of the trees had burned, and the new ones were too young to be flowering yet, but still, deep in the mountain, some could be found. And still, white petals were carried in by the breeze from outside the premises, a gentle reminder of the past, coating the brand new stone steps leading to the inner courtyard.

Lan Xichen sat cross legged, up in the moutains where the grass was abundant, facing the brook that trickled from the peaks, heavy with melting snow, diving straight into the cold pond.

Liebing in hand, he was composing a new song.

Behind him, he could hear Jin Guangyao walk up the long wooden steps that led to this particular spot

He was still a little ways down, and so Lan Xichen kept on playing.

When he heard the rustle of his robes sliding over soft grass, Lan Xichen placed his flute over his lap, and turned, smiling.

"How was the journey?"

"It was good, Er-Ge, thank you for inquiring." Jin Guangyao bent forward slightly, then came to sit at his side, smoothing down his delicate silks. It had become customary, since spring had begun, for them to meet here.

"I brought you a gift." Jin Guangyao said, taking a small book from his sleeve. "Lu You, 'Poems for my cat'."

They had moved on from poetry on the moon, sad partings, breaking guqin strings. A lot of their new favourites were rather funny.

Things had changed. New saplings were emerging from the earth all around them. The promise of their turning into trees was also the promise of many more years to spend here, in this clearing, A-Yao next to him, perhaps with a poetry book.

"Did you get much trouble again?"

"Not this time. My cousin has moved on from his sudden passion for literature, as it turns out. The merchant was left with more copies than he knew what to do with." Jin Guangyao turned and smiled, a little mischievously.

Lan Xichen felt it, ringing deep into the marrow of his bones.

It had started like this: Every month, wealthy merchants would be welcomed into Jinlintai to offer their wares to the court. Tailors, jewelry makers, painters, artists.

There was more than one bookseller, of course, but one of them in particular favored rare volumes over whatever was popular. Once Jin Guangyao had found him, his had become the one tent he would stop at first, every single time.

Over time, he accumulated a little collection he was very proud of. A few of them had ended up as gifts to Lan Xichen, many of them at least temporary lendings, and in exchange, personally hand drafted copies of some of the rare, though not secret, manuscripts of the Lan library had joined his collection.

They spent much time discussing them, walking along their respective sect gardens, laughing quietly, even bickering sometimes. They received strange looks in Jinlintai, but Jin Guangyao always seemed very proud in the face of them, and so Lan Xichen paid it no mind.

These days were good. Then, inevitably, a problem survened. The problem was named Jin Zixun.

A conversation in the gardens with a cousin of his, Jin Ziyuan, had turned heated enough to attract some attention.

It seemed that Jin Ziyuan had, to illustrate a point, quoted a line from a famous classical text. Jin Zixun interjected, claiming his cousin had not quoted correctly.

He offered his own version, and the two argued over it so much it turned from an argument to a row, then a fight, and then a bet. A large sum of money, that the misquoter would have to pay to the other.

A small crowd had gathered to observe the exchange, and oddly, the crowd could not seem to agree. Some sided with Jin Ziyuan, some Jin Zixun, of course, in truth, many of them did not know at all.

Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao happened to be there that day, though quite a ways away, enjoying each other's intimate conversation far from the crowd. But someone thought, as many were quite used to seeing them pass by, side by side, quoting to each other and discussing poetry, that they would be most qualified to settle the matter.

And so one of the youngest in the crowd was sent out, to run and find them and bring them back, so that they could settle the matter for good and determine who had won the bet, or bets, rather, as by now quite a few people had joined in.

So they were dragged together in the middle of the crowd, and asked to determine which version of a single line from a famous work was the correct one.

They turned and looked at each other, and it was Lan Xichen who spoke.

"Forgive me, Jin-Gongzi." He said, addressing Jin Zixuan. "It appears your cousin had the correct version. The poem is obscure and difficult, such a mistake is bound to happen."

Jin Jixun went slightly red in the face, humiliated, but before the crowd could erupt and exchange their bet money, he turned to Jin Guangyao.

"Well, what about you, cousin. What do you think?"

Jin Guangyao smiled, frozen and uncomfortable.

"Ah? Me? I would not dare disagree with Zewu-Jun, who is not only wise and honest, but also a known lover of literature. Of course I defer to him." He said, inclining his head.

"Hm, well then, pretend he said nothing. What do _you_ think." Jin Guangyao's eyes widened slightly at the brash disrespect. He was not the only one, a few members of the crowd gasped, though they sounded far more like gasps of delight than outrage.

Jin Guangyao looked at Lan Xichen, apologetic, and spoke up.

"He spoke the truth. If you wish to _disregard_ title, and due respect, and reputation, even without it, what he said is plainly correct." He answered, with a mild tone of reproach that went entirely ignored.

"Hmm, how do you know? How can we trust you? Are you really so infaillible? Everyone here has varying opinions, what puts you above the rest of us, Jin Guangyao?"

Jin Guangyao smiled again, tight and exhausted, and refrained from pointing out that they were the ones who had brought him here and asked in the first place.

"Well, nothing, nothing at all, of course. But Zewu-Jun-"

"We are not speaking of Zewu-Jun now. We are speaking of you. How can you back up your words? All you have is your opinion. Maybe you're wrong, or maybe you're saying Jin Ziyuan is right just to make me lose the bet. That's entirely likely, so how can I possibly trust you?"

Jin Guangyao looked down and laughed politely.

"Of course, of course, this is a reasonable concern. You are prudent for thinking this way, cousin. Well, I happen to have a copy of the volume that contains this poem, so if you'd like I could bring it here, and then all would be resolved, yes?"

Murmurs of approbation went through the crowd, moreso at the idea of the whole affair being prologed further than it being solved definitively, as, despite its great wealth, Jinlintai lacked in entertainment for minor nobles on lazy afternoons.

So all the crowd marched together, following Jin Guangyao to his private quarters, and as he had no proper excuse to keep them out, he was forced to let a few of them enter his room, even as the discomfort showed clear on his face.

Lan Xichen did his best to quell the wave of them, stopping abruptly in the doorway, counting upon his rank but also his size and height to keep out a majority of the onlookers.

But Jin Zixun, Jin Ziyuan and a few others slipped past him, walking into Jin Guangyao's place with the stride of men who owned every room they walked into, as well as the floors, the ground under it, and the people inside them.

He opened a large, lacquered wooden chest and pulled out several volumes, under the oppressive stare of his cousins, until he found the right one.

He got up, very quickly, putting the other volumes inside and closing the chest of drawers, and practically ran from the room, to get everyone out as fast as possible.

They ended up back outside, in the gardens, as Jin Guangyao had realized quickly that, unlike Jin Zixun, who simply wanted to be right, and therefore could not be satisfied, the crowd wanted to be entertained, and so to keep them peaceful he would need to drag the affair along, and deliver the information very dramatically.

He walked until they had reached a rounded stone bench, and motioned Lan Xichen to stand inside the curve of it.

"Now, Er-Ge, if you would please read the poem to all, I would be grateful to you eternally. But first, of course, to ensure there is no confusion, as these things tend to happen, each side should write down the line that they defend, so that all may see, as the poem is read, which side is correct."

Jin Zixuan seemed inflamed at the idea, but the crowd was too enthusiastic in agreeing, someone even providing paper and ink, and so the choice was taken from him.

'Their tender love flows like a stream.' Jin Ziyuan's quote said.  
'Their tender love blows like the wind.' Jin ZiXun's quote said.

Each was then asked to stand on either side of Lan Xichen, with their scrolls on display, as he stood straight and read beautifully.

"Clouds float like works of art,

Stars shoot with grief at heart,

Across the Milky Way the Cowherd meets the Maid.

When Autumn’s Golden Wind embraces Dew of Jade,

All the love scenes on earth, however many, fade.

Their tender love flows like a stream,

Their happy date seems but a dream,

How can they bear a separate homeward way?

If love between both sides can last for aye,

Why need they stay together night and day?"

He finished reading, as the crowd had not lost interest even after the line in question had been determined. A beautiful poem, recited well by a beautiful man, was the kind of distraction they had been waiting for. And then, once done, the crowd congratulated him, and finally rushed to exchange money, as Jin Zixun was left violently seething, having been even more visibly humiliated by the theatrics of it all.

In proceeding this way, satisfying the crowd by sacrificing Jin Zixun's pride, Jin Guangyao had won himself peace for the day, but trouble for later, as Jin Zixun would certainly want revenge.

He escaped for now, daringly taking Lan Xichen by the arm and pulling him away, making his entire right side ebb like a pond in which a stone had been thrown.

If there was ever a momemt, during this period, when Lan Xichen felt the strongest urge to pull Jin Guangyao into one of the hidden corners of Jinlintai just to kiss him, it was this one.

Not because he was out of his mind with want (though he was, as often), or because it felt particularly warranted(though it did, as A-Yao had demonstrated such stoicism and subtlety that he really would have liked to kiss him for it), but rather, from the sheer exhaustion of the moment.

From a need to hold him tightly after an unpleasant day and keep him in his arms until it was far behind. He wanted to kiss him to say "You have me. All of this doesn't matter for now."

But he wouldn't. If Jin Guangyao wished not to cross this line between them, Lan Xichen would not be the one to push him over it.

Jin Guangyao had made this decision rationally, this much he was certain, and so if he wished to undo it, he would have to do so rationally as well.

Lan Xichen would not allow him to lose himself and make it a mistake.

It would be easy, to make it a mistake, he knew. Jin Guangyao sometimes turned and looked at him, like he wanted nothing more than to make that mistake. This was why he avoided being alone with him, he had realised after a time.

Lan Xichen would not allow it. His pride would not.

'Last time, you asked me to disregard what we had done. To forget about it, erase all of it, and I would have done so, I really would have. But not this time. You will not treat me this way again. If you are too afraid to be my lover, then do not take a lover's liberties with me.'

It had been easy, last time, to do whatever A-Yao wanted. To ease A-Yao's fears at the cost of his pride. It was easy to want for nothing, ask for nothing, when one was being given what felt like everything.

He knew the weakness of his own resolve. If A-Yao one night slipped into his bed, pressed himself bare against him and asked him, once again, to pretend it was not happening, he knew he would not refuse him, he would deny the evidence of his eyes and ears and say the sun rose at night, and fish swam in the sky; he would promise everything A-Yao wanted and trample his pride without hesitation.

But in the meantime, A-Yao was only looking at him. This much he could handle.

So when A-Yao pulled him in one of those very corners, hiding them both behind a golden panel, invisible to the world, he desperately tried to slip out again. But unlike A-Yao he wasn't small and limber, there was no way out of A-Yao pressing him into the wall.

It turned out, A-Yao only wished to hide, as on the other side of the golden panel, Jin Zixun was passing by with a small retinue, ranting and stomping furiously.

So they hid from him, pressed together inside this small space, and Lan Xichen closed his eyes.

He could feel Jin Guangyao's heartbeat against his ribs, quick, heavy, and hear the rustle of their clothes against each other.

Jin Zixun's voice faded, but instead of moving away, Jin Guangyao did his best approximation of a bow, in their small cramped quarters, inclining his head, holding his arms up, squeezed tight between their chests.

"Er-Ge, I apologize for this." He whispered. "Jin Zixun would only have caused us both more trouble, it is always safest to avoid him." Lan Xichen said nothing. He only nodded. "I wish also to apologize for my family. You were treated with great disrespect today, I should have done more..."

"A-Yao, you have no need to apologize. I understand how relatives do not always behave in the way we want them to..." He lost the trail of his speech, seeing the way A-Yao was looking at him, from so close.

The genuine apology in his eyes was fading, distracted by their proximity. He showed no sign of moving, only staring at his mouth.

He pushed one arm up against his chest, leaving his hand curled next to his face, not quite daring enough to move and cradle his jaw. His sleeve slipped and exposed his forearm, and so rather than A-Yao's face, Lan Xichen turned and brushed his mouth against the pulse of his wrist, feeling the skin there that had not changed. The sinews and muscles that had gotten softer, now, with lack of use, but were still there. The blood pulsing under his skin, the warm smell of him.

A-Yao shivered fully against him, his lips parting, his eyes closing softly.

And so Lan Xichen took hold of his wrist, and his waist, and pivoted them around so he was the one close to the exit.

He came out from behind the panel, readjusting his mussed robes and hair, and cooling his face. A-Yao followed behind, eyes wide with disbelief, and hurried to do the same.

Lan Xichen smiled at him, trying to hide the immense thrill of having thwarted him in this way, and resumed their walk, and their conversation.

"Yes, as I said A-Yao, no need to apologize to me. This was a good thing, as today the nobles of Lanling heard some poetry, and perhaps this event will encourage them to read more carefully."

Jin Guangyao snorted weakly, hurrying at his side, still disbelieving and off-balance, and Lan Xichen indulged in it.

\----

After the incident, of course, Jin Zixun sought to get his due. He had humiliated himself, all on his own, anyone passing by could have corrected him, and no amount of tormenting Jin Guangyao could possibly erase it. Nonetheless, he seemed convinced that distressing him would provide relief.

And so, on the next palace market, Jin Zixun followed Jin Guangyao into the bookseller's tent and announced to him, with a self satisfied smile that foretold nothing good, that he intended to better his knowledge, and refine his tastes in terms of literature, and that this seemed a fine place for it.

"So, cousin, what are you here to buy? Any volumes that catch your attention?"

Jin Guangyao sighed and held up his copy of "essays upon the nature of friendship" (which he intended to read privately at night, a good few times, before making up his mind on whether gifting it to Er-Ge would send the correct message). He could tell where this was going.

"Oh, yes this looks very interesting. Very enriching indeed, yes. Merchant, how much do you ask for this one?"

"Gongzi, I'm afraid I carry but one copy of this book, and Jin-Gongzi here holds it in his hand. He asked me to procure it for him last month already. But if you'd like, I could bring another copy for you, for next month?"

"Ah, no, no it won't do. That's too long a wait for instruction, don't you agree, cousin? Have you paid already?" Jin Guangyao smiled, tight and stiff, and shook his head. "Well, then the issue is resolved. My dear cousin will let me buy it, of course. Won't you, Jin Guangyao? Such a small sacrifice, in the face of my personal betterment?"

Jin Guangyao bent his head and nodded, smiling so wide his face hurt.

"Of course, of course, if Jin Zixun asks it of me, how can I refuse?"

The merchant, in his kind heart, saw what was happening and interjected, bowing in turn.

"Ah, Gongzi, I'm afraid I cannot. If I were to let orders go to clients who had not made them, I would lose reputation, you understand, yes?" Jin Guangyao stiffened, fearful, as men like Jin Zixun only saw resistance as an incentive to strike with greater force.

But Jin Zixun only smiled wider and took out his purse.

"Ah, but if my cousin agrees to it, then surely its fine, isn't it? Here, I'll give you twice the price he agreed to. After all, my allowance is greater than his. Look, I will be a better client to you than he was, now hand over the book, cousin."

The merchant looked at Jin Guangyao, hesitating, and so Jin Guangyao nodded, and let him take the money.

He walked from the courtyard empty handed, without the volume he'd been looking forward to for a month, and was careful to avoid him for the rest of the day.

The next morning, very early, he arranged to have a carriage depart for cloud recesses, his chest of books safely stored under his seat. He feared Jin Zixun would soon come knocking at his door, asking to borrow them, again, for his personal betterment, and Jin Guangyao would never see them again. Either they would be lost or destroyed purposefully, or they would simply be kept hostage forever.

All of this he explained to Lan Xichen, drinking his weak tea and massaging his temples, asking if he would agree to keep his volumes here for the time being, and say to anyone who would ask that he had need to borrow them all, so they may be kept away from Jin Zixun's greasy hands.

"Of course, A-Yao, anything. But weren't you saying that men like him, once thwarted, only strike back with greater force? Are you not worried what he may do next?"

Jin Guangyao ran his thumbs under his brow ridge, trying to soothe the exhaustion that was lodged there.

"Yes, yes but for now I cannot imagine what that will be, and therefore I cannot prevent it. Some of these volumes you copied for me by hand, it would cause me great pain to lose them. As for whatever else he may do, I will deal with it as it comes."

"Very well. Then what of the volume you wanted? I could purchase it for you and simply add it to the rest, here."

"That would be kind Er-Ge, but Su Chen insisted he would bring two copies next month, so that even if Jin Zixun attempted to purchase one again, there would be one left for me. He does not think Jin Zixun would be shameless enough to take both, but of course he does not know Jin Zixun."

Lan Xichen took a sip of his tea and thought for a moment.

"I wonder. What if you ordered fifteen copies? A hundred? How committed would he remain to showing how much greater his purse is than yours?"

A-Yao's eyebrows raised slightly and he smiled into his cup.

"That is certainly an idea Er-Ge, but what if he then gave up on it? Su Chen would be left with many unbought copies, and then I would be forced to front the cost."

"Well, perhaps not a hundred copies right away. But if you were to order five, i'm sure that would still be within his means, still an amount that would flatter his vanity to purchase purely for show." A-Yao's lips quivered in a smile, as he looked at him in disbelief. "And then, the next time, you would order seven, with a desperate frenzy, thinking "Oh, surely he could not be so rich as to purchase seven?" But of course, he would be, as seven to five is surely not so great a leap, and then perhaps ten? By then he will own twenty-five copies of the same book, and Su Chen will surely be quite rich and happy with you."

He presented this absolutely ridiculous solution with a clear, reasonable voice, and it had the intended effect: Jin Guangyao's increasing disbelief turned to bubbling laughter at the idea of Jin Zixun and his twenty-five volumes.

"Er- _Ge_ " he exclaimed. "I cannot believe my ears, that you would suggest such a thing."

"I think by proceeding this way, quite some time will pass before we find out the limits of your dear cousin's string purse. If you were to reach that limit and be left with too many unbought copies, then I would pay from my pocket. After all, all my money comes from your father's allowance, and therefore is yours. Not to mention this course of action was proposed by me."

He sipped his tea very innocently as Jin Guangyao bit his bottom lip in a smile, already fetching paper and ink to write to Su Chen.

\-----

That limit turned out to be around forty-six copies bought in one, at which point he had well over a hundred volumes of the book cluttering his quarters.

He had gloated for a long time, everytime that Jin Guangyao groaned in despair at seeing him once again purchase every volume he had ordered, even shedding a tear of frustration, the time Jin Zixun bought sixteen copies at once.

When it felt like it was no longer enough to keep him buying, Jin Guangyao had even pleaded with him to stop, begged upon his kindness to leave him but one single copy.

"Ah, my dear cousin, of course I feel for you, that you want so terribly to read this book, but all my friends are so desperate to read it, and I promised them all a copy. Then their friends' friends, and so on, I'm sorry for your plight, but surely, you can wait just a little longer can't you? Yes, yes of course you can."

And he would stride away, carrying far too many copies and guarding them jealously, convinced that at any time Jin Guangyao would try to sneak in and take one of them, and so he kept a very careful account of them, and watched his room like a hawk over his nest.

After the market day, Jin Guangyao would leave for Gusu and come to sit besides Lan Xichen, as they read the copy of "Essays upon the nature of friendship" that Lan Xichen had had waiting on the table for him, the first day he had returned.

It was inconvenient to read one book at the same time, and so instead they took turns reading aloud to the other. Jin Guangyao would sit, leaning his head on his hand, and listen to him, his eyes closed, a faint smile on his lips.

Once, when Jin Guangyao was the one reading, he'd sat close to Lan Xichen, close enough for their limbs to touch, and placed a hand over his.

"Last night you came into my dream anew

This shows how long I am thinking of you."

-

Jin Zixun gave up only after his cousin Jin Ziyuan saw him carrying forty-six copies of the same book in his arms, and thoroughly made fun of him.

He was left with an outrageous amount of expensive identical volumes, littering his living space, and now that they were shameful to him, he wanted nothing more than to get rid of them.

He could not sell them, without word being spread that he was a madman who had bought hundreds of copies of one book for no apparent reason, and so he tried to destroy them, by throwing some of them into the lake behind the palace.

But two ladies who had been walking by saw him and gasped in shock, and soon the word spread that Jin Zixun was destroying books.

It was a very shameful thing for a gentleman to do, and all the court now thought of him as a boorish individual.

His status so diminished, he could not so easily get the crowd on his side when bullying Jin Guangyao, and so was forced, for the time being, to retreat and leave him be.

Jin Guangyao went into the bookseller's tent, and purchased a copy of "Poems for my cat.", and for once was not empty-handed when he departed for Gusu.

\---

A-Yao opened the book and read a few lines from it, until Lan Xichen was shaking with laughter next to him, laying his dizi down in the soft grass.

"Ah, Er-Ge, what were you playing when I came up? I have never heard this song before. I apologize for interrupting it."

"No apology needed. The song is new. I have been writing it for some time now. It is almost finished." A-Yao tilted his head and smiled.

''I see, could I hear it then? Once you are done with it?"

And suddenly, he was. Lan Xichen heard the last three notes ring in his mind, and the song was completed.

So he nodded, took Liebing to his lips, and began playing.

It was a song he had written for him, and he would not play it for anyone else.

There were many things he could not say, because their friendship did not allow it, or their rank made it improper, or simply because Jin Guangyao would not let him.

His whole life, he had been brimming to the edge with unsaid words. But like this, he could say anything.

He had thought a great deal, too, for the past year. Reflected, and changed.

The song was a melancholic one, full of lilting notes, every sentence dropping at the end, the way farewell songs often did.

It was not a farewell song, he was not saying goodbye to Jin Guangyao. But he was saying goodbye to being his lover-in-waiting.

He would not long for him anymore. He would not fight himself to push away his looks or suffer at the brush of his hand. He would not have demands, that Jin Guangyao love him fully or not at all, sitting here, waiting for his demands to be met, miserable with the need to be held.

He would not suffer any longer.

Jin Guangyao was his friend, his dearest friend, the greatest blessing a man could have, and he was ungrateful for it.

Jin Guangyao was right, to hold himself back, their friendship was the nobler thing. It was respectable, it was public, it was chaste.

Too many times he had laid in his bed and cried, recalling the time Jin Guangyao had kissed his mouth feverishly, and told him they would do it again, every single night, in a hundred different ways, if he stayed alive for him. Too many times he had then taken himself in hand, and recalled how Jin Guangyao had done it, how he had touched him, and felt his absence in the bed next to him like a wound on his body.

He was tired of it now. Tired of missing him, when he was right there.

He would be his friend now, and he would amputate from his soul every one of these ugly feelings, all the lust, and the longing, and the urge to hold him, and the resentment, the pettiness.

As his loyal friend, his soul would be clear again. Eventually, A-Yao would cling to him, and hold him close and shiver, and Lan Xichen would be able to smile, and gently remove him, and pay it no mind. He would not be haunted by it, or feel it in the core or his body.

He would be his most loyal friend.

He finished his song and smiled with relief, looking at the landscape over the mountain, the birds passing by. There was freedom, in this landscape, and the passing of time, and there was hope, in the flight of those birds.

He turned to Jin Guangyao and smiled at him too, a little sadly, as Jin Guangyao wiped the tears from his face.

He removed them with the pads of his fingers, looking at the water on his hands like it had betrayed him, and struggled, visibly, to regain control over his face.

It was difficult, then, to keep to his new resolution, as every nerve in his body screamed to reach out for him and wipe the tears away himself. To kiss them off his face like he had done for him, once, and hold him close, and let himself be kissed, because he knew that he would, now.

A-Yao had understood him, because of course he did, and he was suffering greatly, he had suffered all along, of course, of course. He could take him in his arms and bury his face in his neck and take it all back, and they could make love right here in the grass, he didn't care now if someone saw them.

But what then? Would Jin Guangyao not take it back again? Wouldn't he simply take it as the opportunity to explain all the reasons he had to be afraid, all the reasons they shouldn't, until Lan Xichen was perfectly convinced?

Or if he did, would he not have been pushed into it? Was this not pushing him to cross this line between them? And did this not turn his resolution, his song, into a cheap ploy to get his friend into bed with him?

Jin Guangyao reached out, weakly, almost unthinkingly, his hands batting the air, and found nothing. He put his hand back on his lap and swallowed up his tears.

When he turned to Lan Xichen again, there was a weak smile on his face.

"I came here today because I had news to share, Er-Ge." He said, convincingly pretending there were no tears running down his face. "I am getting married, in the summer. My engagement was yesterday."

Lan Xichen turned to him, and put on the face of a very loyal friend.

"Congratulations, A-Yao. You will be very happy, I am certain of it."

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure of it as well." He nodded, and the tears slowly ran dry.

"What is her name?"

"Qin Su, the daughter of Qin Cangye." He said, and his voice turned soft, and wondrous, and as his loyal friend, Lan Xichen felt very happy for him.

"You must love her very dearly."

"I do." He said, and turned towards him, his eyes determined, and vulnerable and honest. "I truly do." And now he was smiling, his eyes lost, no doubt thinking of her. "It would be my honor if Er-Ge were to attend."

Lan Xichen wanted to say 'This is too much, too much to ask of me right away. It is too short a time to ask me to stop being in love with you.'

Instead, what he said was ''Yes, yes of course. Anything."

\----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, every poem in this chapter is based on a real one! Lu You's "poems for my cat" is not exactly a book, its a series of 8 poems and they are pretty funny. 
> 
> The poem the jin cousins are fighting about is called "Immortals meet at the magpie bridge" by Qin Guan. 
> 
> There is no such book as "Essays upon the nature of friendship" though it feels like something that could exist, as ancient chinese poets and philosophers really love talking about friendship, but the two lines that come up when A-Yao is reading to Lan Xichen and holding his hand were written by the poet Du Fu to his friend Li Bai during the Tang dynasty.
> 
> Thank you for reading! As always please leave a comment, tell me how you feel, hang out, drop a brownie recipe, whatever you got.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh accidentally deleted this chapter while editing!!!😱 i had a backup thank god, if you got an email saying i updated and found nothing, this is why. Sorry!

In spite of Jin Guangyao's low position, no member of the Jin would have a wedding that could be considered anything but lavish.

Not lavish in the way his brother's had been lavish, no, of course. That wedding had been so grand that writings of its majesty had circulated even beyond the kingdom, along drawings of the patterns on the cloth that adorned the jade walls, carvings of the glistening lions that had proudly led the wedding party, setting their heavy, plushed paws upon threaded red silk for miles and miles, cloth dolls of the bride and groom, their polished faces exquisitely painted with blushing, wide eyed love and their clothes carefully, lovingly recreated in miniature by celebrated tailors.

It was not so grand as this, but still, by most standards, it was outrageous.

Jinlintai in its entirety exploded crimson with festivities: billowing, sunrise silks, shimmering red-gold birds trilling through the gardens, elaborate red paper lamps blowing through the wind, fireworks and deafening red bells, red dancers, acrobats, laughing red girls and boys striking in their beauty, running up and down gilded, red-clothed stairs.

In the middle of it all A-Yao stood perfectly still, like a column, clad with robes that on him, and only on him, took on the quality of blood.

Blood, flesh, the shine of the garment slick and gleaming; the blood of the war and the blood of after the war, and the blood of toil on raw fingers and the blood of women and the slick of women and the blood on the mating bed which was really just a different kind of toil.

The starchy white of his face stood out, in all this gleaming slick red and gold and the shiny black of his hair, he seemed terrified, sick even. And perhaps it was expected that he should be terrified sick, as the groom. Only, he had seemed so glad before.

"I had not imagined my life this way." He had told Lan Xichen once, a few weeks before his wedding, flushed with excitement, bashful in his teacup. "I did not think I would ever marry; that I would ever be blessed so."

Jin Guangyao had not cried since that first time he had come to tell him, and now, every visit, he was newly glowing with love.

He spoke of her very discreetly, careful not to be improper. She was beautiful, and very much like him, in disposition and manner and temperament.

Then he had gotten tired of propriety, and finally let out that after their first meeting she had been so eager to see him again that she'd walked up and down the halls of the palace, making conversation with whoever she found, until she could pass by him.

She had been so obvious in her pursuit that many courtiers had put hands to their mouths in shock, but by then she had been too far along in her success to care very much.

Lan Xichen, who was a loyal friend, chuckled at the story as he poured him another cup of not-yet improved gusu tea, and resisted the urge to ask Jin Guangyao if he would still drink water from his hands now.

He could have avoided asking, as he knew now that Jin Guangyao much preferred when he said nothing, and simply presented him with a pail of cold water and no cup or ladle to drink from.

Thus, he could ensure Jin Guangyao would not return to visit him again; no longer would he show him his face glowing with love and his stories of a woman who wanted him so obviously that Jin Guangyao did not even think to mind the impropriety of it.

But now, in the midst of all this red, his face did not glow at all, his face was white with fear.

Was he afraid of the people? The great red masses that had never been kind to him, and now threatened to swallow him along with his delicate bride, with their jeers and drunken gossip?

Or was he afraid of the ceremony; the solemn eye of tradition imposing its heavy gaze on a young love that should have by rights only belonged to them? Was he afraid of failure? Of responsibility?

Surely he was not afraid of making love to her. He had bedded virgins before.

Once at least.

But Lan Xichen was a dear friend and so he did not think of that.

He stood next to Nie Mingjue, who had briefly reconciled with A-Yao for this moment, and they both congratulated their sworn brother and laughed and cheered with him as they headed the front of the wedding party, and went to collect his bride, not from her actual home, but a golden pavillion that had been provided to her family for the occasion.

She stepped out, clutching her mother, revealing that A-Yao was not in fact the only one who looked like blood. But she was not white and starched. As the veil lifted from the breeze, all could see her blooming youth under the powder and paint.

She stood at the step of the pavillion, and just as was proper, she moaned and wailed with her mother at the prospect of parting, though her eyes were dry under the delicate red muslin, and when she crossed the line that separated daughter from wife she did it in one bright jump, her robes rustling around her with movement and life, and her veil lifted all the way to reveal that yes, indeed she was beautiful, and filled with fierce joy and freedom.

She practically ran to him, and he caught her in his arms with such ease that it was clear she had run to him this way many times before. He was used to her exuberance, and her cheer, and to opening his arms for her and used to moving with her, graceful and effortless the way two butterflies sometimes danced around each other.

He carried her to the veiled, golden sedan that had been prepared for the bride, and before he broke away she slipped her hand into his. They spoke of something, too quietly for others to hear, and though he did not really want to look, Lan Xichen could not help but notice the way their hands kept on sliding together, twining, restless, unsatisfied simply to stay next to each other without endless movement, brushing thumbs, fingers tightening then softening again.

After the ceremony concluded, they walked to the marriage chamber and the groom's party was shown inside.

The bride and groom sat upon the bed and poured wine for all of them, Qin Su circling the neck of the jar delicately with her fingers before tipping the column, letting the liquid drip slowly down to the half-moon saucer.

Lan Xichen did not want to look or take it.

A-Yao's eyes met his and he opened his hand without a thought. The half-moon was thrust into his hands and his fingers closed around the rim.

So he kept it, until the toast of good fortune was made, and A-Yao put the cup between his lips and sucked the liquid down his throat, spare one single drop that spilled over the corner of his mouth.

The guests made more jokes, more words of congratulations, and, overtaken with laughter, Qin Su threw her head back and opened her mouth wide, her small frame shaking with delight, as she exposed the inside of her, as crimson red as her robes.

A-Yao only grasped her waist tight, so she would not fall, and so she clung to him, still shaking in his arms with the joy of it, and just so her headpiece would not slip off, he reached underneath her hat and slipped his fingers through the delicate crimson veil, parting the layers and keeping his hand there.

His movements were so assured, easy, the two were so comfortable in their closeness that it seemed obvious they had been like this before. They were used to easy intimacy.

She lifted her wrist and a bead of sweat ran down from the inside of her sleeve, disappearing behind a brush of her fingers. Her face was beginning to dampen too, all of them were, the room was swelteringly hot. She did not remove the layer of pink that shone over her shoulders, honey-slick in the candlelight, but almost.

She lifted it and shook it to create some air, and when A-Yao noticed he lifted her veil with a finger and blew on her face, in one swift movement, like a bird pecking at the sky, like a stolen kiss, making her laugh and cling tighter to him.

It was time for the guests to leave, and A-Yao rose up to show them out, paler and paler, but beautiful and straight-backed and determined. His every step was fluid, his movements direct and sure. When he extended his arm to show the way to his guests, it was in one firm thrust, his face betraying nothing but duty.

However, as the guests trailed out and it came Lan Xichen's turn to leave, A-Yao looked up, and in one of those rare few times Lan Xichen kept close to his heart, he removed his mask.

He had seen this expression before, where, where had he seen it, what did it mean? This tight set of the eyebrows over wide open eyes. Pleading. Pleading for what?

He tried to remember as A-Yao grasped at his arm.

"Er-Ge. Thank you for being here today. And for being my friend." There was desperation in his voice. In his eyes.

It was said with uncertainty. Begging for confirmation. 'You are my friend, yes? You are? Like you promised?' And Lan Xichen could only nod, sensing that something very grave was at stake.

And then the hand on his arm was pushing him outside, and his last glimpse was of Jin Guangyao's white, terrified, determined face between the heavy golden doors.

\---

They closed with a thump, and Lan Xichen was left alone in the deserted hallway, thinking only of what it was he absolutely needed to remember, to distract him from the feeling in his stomach, the writhing mass of ink-black thoughts he had no interest in examining.

But he stood there too long, and the silence broke under the pearly tumble of Qin Su's laughter, her sounds of surprise, of pleasure, her immediate shamelessness.

Lan Xichen hurried to leave as he kept on hearing far more than he wished, his ears refusing to let him block any of it out.

(Had he sounded like her? No, that wasn't likely. Did it feel the same for her? No, of course not. But did she love him as much?

Yes. Yes, it appeared she did.)

The easy physical closeness between them, the obvious habit of it, made him so envious it hurt. He'd never gotten to have this much. To be so used to A-Yao's body touching his that the movement of their hands didn't warrant a single thought. To fit next to him with ease, rather than tremble like a colt at the mere fact that A-Yao was close enough to touch.

He would have wanted to laugh about it, to have the luxury to ignore moments of closeness, stemming from an assurance that there would always be more to come, endlessly, forever.

There would be no more to come, he reminded himself. Never again.

He had resigned himself to it. He had written a song. He had forgotten the song. No matter, he would write another one. He would write ten more. Twenty more.

A farewell song for the version of him that had been in love with Jin Guangyao for close to three years now.

A farewell song for the memory of the night A-Yao had made love to him. Another song for the letters he had written. A farewell song for the year he had spent dreaming of their meeting again. Another farewell song for all the times A-Yao could have reached out and touched him but didn't.

A farewell song for that yearning he had, to be so well-acquainted with A-Yao touching him that he was unmoved by it.

And more songs, and more, until he was free from all of it. It could take years. He had plenty of those.

He could fill library shelves with songs. He had enough of them too.

He stepped outside, into the night air, and the bright festivities assaulted his eyes

A merchant offered him a jar of wine. He paid more than was asked and concealed it inside his sleeve, in search of a quiet, secluded place.

\---

During their time in hiding, A-Yao had taught him how to mend fabric.

It was a crucial skill, in the kind of life they now lived. Poverty. Danger. Closing tatters in clothing, closing tatters on skin. Hiding money in the lining of tunics, hiding knives.

A-Yao's quick fingers guided his into a properly straight line, their heads bent together over the same work. He could feel the slight breeze of his breath dusting over his face.

Looking up, he saw the details of A-Yao's face so clearly it was shocking. Each of his downcast eyelashes, a few imperfections in the skin, too faint to notice at any further distance.

It was forbidden knowledge. He let out a staggering breath and turned his attention back to his stitches.

In hiding, Lan Xichen didn't know what to do. He didn't know the rules. Didn't understand how the people lived.

He should have. He was to rule over them, take his uncle's place as their protector, the benevolent figure presiding over their lives, and now he realized he knew nothing of these people. How they lived, what mattered to them, the rules they abided by, different from those of the gentry.

For the first time in his life, there was no one to welcome him. The rules were written nowhere, yet all the people knew them.

Even as a little boy, he had known what to do better than anyone. He'd had to.

So what was he now? A man who knew nothing at all about the world, more helpless than a child. He needed Meng Yao in a way he had forgotten it was possible to need someone.

The way he had needed his mother those first few years he had been allowed to live with her, before he was deemed old enough to learn to be a Lan and taken away for instruction.

He knew somewhere deep in his soul, a knowledge he could not put into words, that away from her was death, that with her he was receiving something perhaps more vital than food or shelter, something without which he would become strange, twisted in unimaginable ways.

He saw from the window of his childish eyes the road to misery that awaited him outside her door, and wailed with a fear akin to that of losing a limb; the knowledge that one could be changed to the core by the will of others and be powerless against it. Like seeing the approach of the jailer's bone-saw and knowing, in that moment, that you were to be crippled for life.

Had he been older, wiser, better able to put knowledge to words, he would have screamed "You believe to be doing good, but you are doing me irreparable harm." But he was too young, he could only cry out, when those great, powerful arms had taken him away.

And the damage was done, and the moment was forgotten. Later, he did not remember his mother, not in the same way; he did not remember the horror, or that terrible knowledge. In fact, he remembered nothing at all.

As for the great howling void inside of him, he simply assumed it had always been there.

So now, alone in the great bustle of a world he knew nothing about, he took the hand Meng Yao offered and let the enormous weight of trust splash into that tentative friendship that had pooled between them, that first day in cloud recesses.

He had trusted him like a child, and Meng Yao had admonished him for it. Everyday, A-Huan woke up, as certain of Meng Yao as he was certain of the sun's rising, and everyday Meng Yao reproached him. Everyday, too, Meng Yao kept him safe; everyday, Meng Yao told him what to do and did not deceive him.

On the first day in hiding, Meng Yao had put his hand on Lan Xichen's chest and pushed in.

"Curve your back when you stand. Only noblemen keep so straight."

He gave him instruction in a clipped voice, too hurried and terrified to remember to be respectful of his rank, and Lan Xichen had been stunned into silence by it.

Meng Yao did not apologize for that, as by the time they were safe enough to breathe, several days had passed. Lan Xichen never asked him to.

"Your words and your manner show that you're not from here, people will notice. Say nothing, pretend to be stupid, and I will speak for you." Lan Xichen had nodded, and for a week when anyone came near he pretended to be stupid, and dependent upon his companion completely.

He hadn't needed to pretend much.

Then after more time had passed, and he had spent enough time listening to the people, he could emit short sentences that passed for that of a man of Yunping, with little education and not much friendliness, until slowly another voice came out of his mouth like a cloak hiding him from the crowd.

He bent his back and spoke coarsely, trailed Meng Yao like a servant, dressed in thick ugly fabrics that scratched his skin and dulled his complexion. In the streets and in taverns, people called him 'boy'.

He had never been vain, (the heir of Lan could not be so), but he knew he was handsome within the cultivation world. Now however, in dull fabrics, without his ornaments, his pride, his straight back and his family name, he realized he was plain.

His looks were glassy, reflective pools that shone brightly near silver and jade, and dulled to nothing in rough wool and straw hats.

"All the better, people won't look at you." Meng Yao said, looking, too, very different than he had in Gusu. There, he had been gleaming and bright, flush faced with honor and position, every hair in place, delicately groomed and tastefully adorned, even in his young master's old things.

Now they were both dull, and dirty, their youth more a sign of weakness than beauty, and their features softly erased by the dust and the grime and the exhaustion.

Meng Yao seemed to suffer most, however, from this lack of shine. He covered his face when needed but still he minutiously adjusted his clothing, carefully tied his hair. When no mirror was present he found a bassin of water, an iron shard, a knife. If he wore a hat he carefully adjusted it, often. He scrubbed his shoes everyday, of the filth of the streets and the blood of the men and anything else that had landed on them, so that the next day he would depart again with soles as clean as if they were brand new.

To not much use, as he was still dirty and plain.

A-Huan looked at them both, in the smudged copper mirror that covered the wall of their bought roof, at how little he recognized either of them. The shape of the mirror, its elaborate, worn edges, were designed to frame its reflection like the edges of a painting.

No painter would bother with them, he thought, having once been a subject so sought after that masters from all over the land traveled months for a glimpse of him.

Nothing of interest was to be seen, no point of color, no charming feature worth recording, he was sure of it, looking at himself, and A-Yao behind him in the mirror carding his hands through his hair.

"Men in Yunping don't keep their hair so elaborate, it stands out." Meng Yao had said. ''Sit here. I'll do it for you."

No, no painter would bother with them. In paintings, people were beautiful, colorful, vibrant. They smiled and stood straight, committed incredible deeds and displayed impossible beauty with perfect, placid calm.

Subjects in paintings did not feel very much, and that was the biggest obstacle. It was not possible to be framed by a flat, gilded square and feel as much as he did, with every tug of Meng Yao's fingers against his scalp, every slide of the old wooden comb through his hair.

He felt the slight breeze of Meng Yao's breath shaking the strands against his ear, the weight of his hand upon his neck, gathering back the hair on his side. He felt it too strongly for propriety, until his back tapped Meng Yao's chest and he realized he had been leaning against his hands like a dog.

Meng Yao did not push him away. He gathered his hair out from between them to push it aside, and returned to his work. He bent A-Huan's neck with his fingertips and kept him there.

He went on like this for a long time, his fingers steady points of pressure against the grass sea of his scalp, until A-Huan almost disappeared, and nothing existed anymore besides the places A-Yao was touching.

A-Huan was too dazed to turn and wind his arms around him. He was not yet even aware it was what he wanted to do. He simply closed his eyes and forgot all about the painting and the frame, and how unseemly a picture they made, because he felt too much like a person, like A-Huan, to be Zewu-Jun who belonged in paintings.

The following day, as Wen soldiers trashed the inn that was housing them, A-Yao pushed him inside the large oak wardrobe, a finger over his lips.

The last thing he saw was A-Yao's white, terrified, determined face between the heavy wooden doors.

It meant ' _Please keep loving me, in spite of what I am about to do.'_

\-----

"Where have you been?" Mingjue whispered, concerned, as Lan Xichen hurried back to his seat for the beginning of the banquet.

A-Yao and his bride took their place at the center and lifted their cups for all to drink.

Lan Xichen followed suit, with the rest of the room, and in the process he noticed the hem of his inner sleeve was torn, quite badly in fact. He hurried to drink, and tucked the sleeve to his chest to keep it from view the rest of the night.

"I seem to have lost my way. Jinlintai feels larger at night." He said, turning to Mingjue and smiling. Calm, composed.

Mingjue only looked at him with disappointment in his eyes.

"Zewu-Jun. Please follow me.'' He said, after the banquet was well and truly in movement, his request sounding more like an order.

They left their seats, and only when they reached one of the secluded corners of the palace did Lan Xichen wonder if this was a proposition of some kind.

"Turn around." And Lan Xichen did. He was willing enough, though the drunken haze over his mind was not thick enough to make him forget that this really was not prudent, and anyone could walk by.

He felt hands above his head and realized his headpiece had come half-undone. It was really very shameful.

Mingjue put it back in place for him.

"Thank you." Lan Xichen said, and the silence that replied was more chastizing than any speech.

Mingjue stepped around to face him, and his face was hard, but not unkind.

"You're a better man than this, Xichen."

A thousand bitter replies swarmed his mouth, overpowering the taste of the liquor, but he knew better than to let them out.

Mingjue was right, in a way, even as he was wrong in many others.

Mingjue would not accept tears and an apology.

Lan Xichen wouldn't really know how to go about it anyway.

"This marriage is a good thing, Xichen. You'll survive it." And Lan Xichen saw just how much Mingjue had understood, and saw too that he would never place a hand upon his again when he visited for tea.

It could be he would not even be invited for tea again; perhaps out of pity or perhaps out of disgust, and it was more than deserved, yes, after everything, but tonight it was just a little more than he could handle.

Lan Xichen staggered slightly and as he always did, Mingjue caught him, like a solid mountain, and held him upright as Lan Xichen clutched at his robes and struggled to keep himself together.

He took a deep breath and lifted himself off, looking into Mingjue's eyes, as close as they had been that night they had fallen into each other, and Lan Xichen had shown him the worst side of himself, like he kept doing, again and again.

"Thank you." He said, and it also meant _'I'm sorry.'_

Mingjue nodded, grim.

"We should go back." Mingjue said, and led him back to the main hall, to the people and the head splitting noise, and to A-Yao in the center of it, beautiful and poised and no longer papery-white. Of course, of course he could not be, after such exertion.

The second robe barely covered anything, in comparison, a long slash in the sleeves uncovering his forearms with every wide movement, the pale column of his neck exposed with every turn of his bare head, free of his hat. He looked almost naked, and it was a struggle not to search every inch of bared skin for hints of what he had done. Traces of purple on the edge of his collar, hints of lovely, small teeth on the skin of his wrists, a single hair out of place.

But no, neither of them looked anything other than perfect. The only evidence was the flush of their cheeks, the tight clasp of their hands.

Lan Xichen was a loyal friend, and he did not think of how A-Yao's face had been flushed red to his neck, after. How strands of hair had stuck to his skin. How he had been shining with sweat, almost unable to keep his eyes open, clinging to him with what little strength was left in his tired body.

The scent that could only be detected from very close, something like spice and dust, had become warm and heady and present, filling up his mouth and nose to dizziness. He would smell it on himself for days after, on his hair and his hands, and then, in that room, where the air had gotten thick with their labored breathing.

In this moment too, even though he was so small, A-Yao had felt impossibly heavy, pinning him down with the weight of sleep, fingers twitching against his neck.

Lan Xichen sat in the middle of the banquet, drinking. He would sleep alone tonight, and the night after, and the one after. He would write a song and he would finally learn to like it.

\-----

After he'd been let out of that wardrobe in Yunping, he had spent the rest of the day mending, like A-Yao had taught him.

He'd kept his hand steady and his breathing calm, and his stitches had been straight, and perfect. He had been taught well.

Now in cloud recesses, he attempted to mend again, but the needle in his ripped sleeve refused to obey him. He had bought the bone needle and the spindle of thread at a market on the way back, and he now wondered if he had gotten the wrong kind, or if he was simply too out of practice.

The more he tried to remember, the more his fingers shook. He could not stitch properly, and by now he had undone his work and started again close to twenty times.

A knock came at the door of the Hanshi.

It was not done, for unexpected visitors to come to Cloud Recesses.

He did not answer, and simply kept at his task.

A second knock, and then a third, and finally, Jin Guangyao, opening the door and walking into the room.

"Er-Ge." Lan Xichen looked up from his task. "I apologize for the intrusion. My father sent me."

It was late. Inappropriate to entreat a sect leader at this time. Jin Guangyao looked weary from his journey, disheveled and bent by exhaustion. He must have been told to leave the very same day.

His wedding had been a week ago. Whatever the request was, it had to be something of great urgency.

Lan Xichen nodded and showed him to the seat accross. They did not move to the guest table. Lan Xichen put down his work and rose to his feet to fetch the tea and cups.

He had some tea from Lanling still in his possession, a very small amount meant for the sect leader's personal use. It was fragrant, soothing. A relief after a long day.

When he returned with the tray, he found Jin Guangyao with the garment in his lap, having made quick work of the tear in the sleeve. He was already done, the stitches disappearing under a fold in the fabric. It was as though the garment had never been damaged at all.

Suddenly, Lan Xichen wanted him out.

Out. He would not hear his request, he would pour the tea on the ground outside.

He had not been angry with Jin Guangyao before, even in moments where perhaps he should have been, but this intrusion, this presumption that Lan Xichen's torn clothing was his to mend as he chose, was like a single drop overflowing the sea.

He stood and breathed, and placed the tray upon the table. "Jin-Gongzi" and Jin Guangyao's head snapped up at his choice of name. "Please give this back to me." He said softly.

His voice had not betrayed anything. Nor had his face, or his posture. He was an agreeable man, always. But Jin Guangyao's face paled nonetheless.

A few weeks ago he would not have spared a liberty of this kind a second thought, he would have quietly thanked him and continued the conversation. It was not an unusual overreach on Jin Guangyao's part.

And yet at the same time it very much was.

Jin Guangyao carefully went around the table to hand the garment back to him, holding it like it was very delicate, yet burning his hands.

He kneeled there, and now there was no expanse of wood between them, he sat so close their knees almost touched. When he pushed the garment to him, Lan Xichen looked up from it and saw the details of his face, his downturned eyelashes, those faint spots of color that could be called freckles. He felt nothing. Only mourning. A painful memory.

Jin Guangyao opened his eyes and directed the full force of his attention on him, desperate and fearful, and Lan Xichen turned his head away.

"Whatever your father wants, tell him he'll have it. It is too late for a meeting. Please return another time." This time his voice did quiver. His eyes were glued on the floor, anywhere but Jin Guangyao's face.

"Er-Ge, please hear it first. My father's request is not a reasonable one." He sounded panicked, pleading. His hands came to rest on his thighs, as though he was forcefully keeping them in place.

"Then why ask me, Jin-Gongzi?" He replied, and his head was still turned away, he was growing aware of just how childishly he was behaving.

"You know I cannot refuse his orders. If he commands me I must obey. But you do not. He wishes to be granted view of the Lan library's forbidden military texts, he has many points with which to pressure the Lan. He expects you to say no to me, which is why he will call you to Jinlintai and ask again in front of the court. You must be prepared for it." He had said everything in one hurried breath, as though saying * _'Please put your feelings aside and listen to me, this is more important.'_ *But when Lan Xichen looked at him he saw his eyes, and how they really said * _' don't care about this, please just look at me again.'_ *

Lan Xichen closed his eyes and staggered backwards, away from it, more ungraceful than he had ever been in his distress, and in the process caught the sleeve under himself and pulled all the thread out again.

Jin Guangyao had not had time to close the stitch, and so it was all undone with one movement. Lan Xichen held it in his hand and said nothing for a bit.

"I will prepare accordingly then. Thank you for your warning. You may leave now." He said, his voice flat, staring at the toothy edges of the cloth.

"You don't know what he plans to say, how will you prepare?" And Lan Xichen wanted to say _Leave, Leave, Leave, Leave_.

"I will manage.'' _Get out._ ''I know well what I owe the Jins," _Get out._ "I do not need a list drawn for me." _Get out, please, Get out._

"Why have you not given this to a seamstress?" Was his only reply.

Lan Xichen's head snapped. Never once, for any of Jin Guangyao's oversteps, had he asked him to apologize. They were equals, he thought, everytime Jin Guangyao bowed to him. And he felt it sincerely, until this moment, when his only thought was _How can someone dare be so presumptuous?_

A flood of shame covered him on Jin Guangyao's behalf. Perhaps he had been a bad friend to him, in allowing Jin Guangyao so many liberties, because he behaved like this now. A sect leader had dismissed him and yet he remained in the room. He remained, sitting improperly close, and pried and pried and pried and _pried_.

"You may leave now, Jin-Gongzi." He repeated, slowly.

"You are using the wrong needle, the cloth is damaged from it. Please allow me to help you." And he crawled closer, throwing all respect and propriety to the floor and trampling it with his foot, and when Lan Xichen looked at him again he saw Jin Guangyao was trembling with fear, fighting his own instincts.

"I don't want your help. This garment belongs to me, if it ends up damaged only I will be affected. If it ends up ruined, so be it. You may leave now."

"Why don't you want my help, Er-Ge?" He pleaded. "How did you tear it?"

"I am not beholden to answer you, Jin-Gongzi. You are overstepping."

"I know." He said. And his face was grim. "This lowly one is not owed an answer, this lowly one has been asked to leave and still remains. This lowly one will take any punishment you think appropriate." He stated, and still he did not move.

"Jin-Gongzi." He said, and he could barely hear himself from the blood thumping at his ears. "Please refrain from making another visit. If the Jin wish to send a message, ask they send someone else." Now he truly spoke in anger. He did not want Jin Guangyao banished from Gusu, or at least he had not, when the conversation had started, but now he was losing himself. Only saying what felt good. Only sliding small knives into him, and looking at the tender flesh as it bled.

It felt good to tell Jin Guangyao never to come back. It felt better still to see the pain contorting his body as he forced himself to endure it.

Jin Guangyao inclined his head and nodded, but still he did not leave.

"Why are you still here, Jin Gongzi?" He said, and regretted it because he had not wanted to give him an opportunity to explain himself.

"Because I cannot leave, Er-Ge." As though he was trying to stoke the flames of his irritation.

"Why not?" Lan Xichen said, curt, and he realized he did not sound like an agreeable man anymore, and Jin Guangyao flinched from it.

"I know if I leave now we will never be as we were again.'' For a single, mad second, Lan Xichen considered simply getting out himself. Abandoning his own home and sleeping in the mountains, until Jin Guangyao finally left.

"Yes. That is why I wish for you to leave. Get out." He barely recognized his own thoughts, so mad was he with all the bile that flooded his mouth. Everything they had never spoken about was coming up all at once, filling his throat with bitterness. He wanted to say a hundred things at once, and instead he could say none.

Jin Guangyao's eyes turned red at this, and downcast. He remained as though glued to the floor.

A very long moment passed, where neither said anything.

"Er-Ge. Please do not cast me out." Jin Guangyao said, bowed to the floor, and when he looked up again he seemed like the boy he once was, with a crimson stain blooming in the cloth of his shoulder.

Horror rose up in Lan Xichen's chest and lodged itself deep in his throat. He rose to his feet and stumbled around the room, pacing around as though he could escape it.

If Jin Guangyao was still that boy, so was Lan Xichen, now cleaved in two by a voice that pursued him, in the lilting accents of a sullen man from Yunping. ' _Here it comes, just like you knew it would. Here it comes._ '

"I am not casting you out." He said, and now it was him who pleaded. "You have a home to return to." He said, even as he knew so well just what kind of home Jinlintai had been to him. "You have a carriage to take you there, you have money, clothes. You are not a servant thrown to the streets." He said, trying desperately to convince himself. "You have a wife to return to." He remembered, and yes, this convinced him. "You have a wife who loves you. She is not the one asking you to leave. You should be with her now, rather than sitting on my floor."

Jin Guangyao looked up again, as though he had nothing. As though the layers and layers of gold-threaded silks he disappeared under were nothing but tatters, and he was shivering with cold and hunger at his door and begging only for a morsel of food and a small fire, and wasn't Lan Xichen his friend? Had he not sworn? Would he let him die in the cold outside?

"I don't want to." He said.

Lan Xichen was a little shocked to hear it.

It was not something that was brought up, what either of them wanted, in the lives they now led. That it could be offered as any kind of justification struck him as very pathetic.

Seeing Jin Guangyao's face, he knew this feeling was shared.

He kneeled and spoke.

"This is no way for a good man to act, Jin-Gongzi. Please be reasonable." Jin Guangyao's face twitched with pain.

"Then how is a good man to act, Er-Ge? Please tell me. I have been trying. I have been trying so hard, and I cannot seem to do it." He looked up at him and grasped his sleeve, and Lan Xichen let him. "Is there such a thing as a good man? Since I became my father's son, you are the only one I've found."

Lan Xichen's shoulders fell from the sudden exhaustion. His back curved and he felt, too, like the silk upon his back was rough wool again.

He noticed the dark circles that lined Jin Guangyao's eyes, the pallor of his skin, and saw he too was exhausted, exhausted beyond words, and Lan Xichen began to wish for the conversation to end so they could both sink to the floor and sleep.

"Maybe there isn't. I am not a good man. You won't find such a thing amidst petty politicians."

"You are." He said, shaking his head. "Politician or not. It isn't love talking."

A very weak huff escaped from Lan Xichen's nose. Not really a laugh. Just a reaction, that love was brought up, for the very first time since before the war, and it was like this.

"You don't know everything I've done. You have been very far away from me."

"I was trying to be honorable." He said, and his voice could barely be heard. Like an apology, but not quite.

"I know. I understood, after a while." Lan Xichen said. "I am a great credit to you as a friend, but as a lover I bring you nothing but shame. It was a prudent decision, to keep a distance. And you have always been a prudent man."

Jin Guangyao's brow furrowed to hear it put like this.

"I did not...it was not so cold a decision. It was true for both of us. Er-Ge please understand-"

"I do. You saw correctly."

Jin Guangyao breathed, restless, and looked down at the floor.

"I...perhaps I should have...I thought if I sat you down and told you, it would have been crueler."

"You were wrong." And he looked as the sentence hit Jin Guangyao like a handful of rocks. "It only made it less bothersome."

Jin Guangyao closed his eyes, and he endured it all.

"It hurt me as well, if it helps."

"I know that too." Lan Xichen thought about all the times Jin Guangyao looked at him with suppressed love, all the times he kept himself from reaching out.

"I wanted what was between us to be out in the light. I was always glad to have you as my friend and brother. It was not just a matter of reputation. I did not love you less."

Lan Xichen did not answer. What was he to say? He knew, he knew, he knew. He knew everything already. To hear it didn't make it better.

''Please don't...cast me out. You know. You know already how I couldn't bear it." Lan Xichen did not say that this was why he wanted to. That Jin Guangyao's obvious love for him almost enraged him. That he could feel so deeply and yet discard him so, that this love seemed not to move him at all.

If Jin Guangyao's feelings for him did not move him at all in one direction, he would get the satisfaction of seeing him dragged screaming by it in the other.

He closed his eyes and felt a tear slip from them.

"What then? Will I spare you so we can return to the way things were? I won't suffer this any longer. I need to be away, I want to stop this." He pleaded, pleaded, but Jin Guangyao would not release him.

Jin Guangyao took his arm and bent his head over it, and cried as he refused. He refused even as Lan Xichen begged him, he remained selfish and cruel in his tears, selfish and cruel as he looked up, selfish and cruel as he pushed forward until their lips met.

Lan Xichen sunk against him. He couldn't bear it. He had spent so long thinking of it, sustaining himself on memory alone. The reality of it was almost too hot to touch.

He brought his hands up to Jin Guangyao's face.

No.

Lan Xichen let go and staggered backwards, as far from it as possible, shivering.

"Your wife loves you enough, I've seen her and I know it, you have no need of me." And still Jin Guangyao shook his head, and looked at him as though he had nothing at all. "How can you stand to be so selfish?"

"I don't know. I don't know how I can stand anything. I can't stand myself. Please don't leave me."

Lan Xichen closed his eyes. Just to have a moment's peace.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven't updated in an ungodly amount of time so here's a small section that i felt could be uploaded as its own chapter. We are switching to Meng Yao's POV now so get ready for...idk moral grayness? But not just yet. Have fun.

'Meng Yao, you'll go dampen the fire now, and be quick about it!" 

The Madam of the house, Miss Song she was called, had made a deal with Meng Yao's mother: she would not try to sell him, so long as he was useful. And so, despite having a mother and so being above the street orphans that were often put to work at his house, he was treated sometimes more poorly than them, and beaten more often, because Miss Song disliked her.

Miss Song thought his mother too proud, always talking of how she'd had a Sect Leader's child, and so she delighted in dulling her little pearl with whips and lashes, roughening his hands with labor and spoiling his sweet temper with tormenting words and kicks. 

Her little pearl, that was what his mother called him. She whispered it in his hair at night, while she held him and soothed the ache from his fingers. 

Once or twice she had pulled, from the lattice gap where she kept it hidden, the jade pin that his father had given her, embossed with one large, cloudy pearl at the top. 

"He gifted me two pearls, you see? This one, and then you. You were both the same size once, but then you grew and grew, and now you're so big I can barely hold you up! Am I not lucky, to have gotten a pearl that grows?" 

His mother had said that, in spite of all her threats, Miss Song could not put him to work the way she worked his mother, as he was a Sect Leader's son, and that was what Miss Song resented the most. 

His father was so powerful that the mere mention of him could dissuade someone as greedy and arrogant as Miss Song. The thought filled him with wonder.

Here was a man who owned pearls that could turn into people, a man that everyone feared even though he never showed his face, a man whose name was enough to keep Miss Song away, even as Meng Yao grew further and further from the perfect age to be sold.

His father must be some kind of deity, then, and surely had a temple somewhere. Like the gods that the women of the house sometimes went to pray to, whom no one ever saw but everyone always spoke of with great fear and respect. 

"It's a waste! A waste, A-Shi. You have this pin and you have this boy, both could get you enough to settle your debt and set up a house! Are you stupid, that you keep them in boxes like a greedy old woman? Soon the boy will be too old, and the jade will grow dull in that dusty little room!" Miss Song would say, often, at mealtimes. She wanted the jade pin and she wanted Meng Yao, but she could not steal them as she would have from any other woman, so all she could do was spit greed in his mother's ear, day after day.

But Meng Shi would only shake her head and say nothing, and keep both pearls to herself, even as it meant she would keep on working, and Meng Yao would keep on being beaten. 

She blew cool air over his hands in the night, and smoothed his hair with her soft hands.

"This is only for now, A-Yao." She would say. "You must only bear it for now, until your father comes for us. Be brave until then, will you?" 

And so Meng Yao learned all his life how to bear it, and be brave, just for now. Bear it because he was certain in his heart that one day something better would come. 

He learned the way everyone in his station learns, to put his hope on something he had never seen, and trust that one day all his pain would return something, because it was the only way.

On this day, when Miss Song told him to dampen the fire, he had been beaten hard across the back of the legs, and so being quick was a painful ordeal. But he bore it, like he bore everything else. By now he had grown to be very good at it. 

There was commotion through his house, that day, as there would be for many days to come.

There was to be an auction in Yunping, set by one of the greatest merchant-houses in the world. Expensive items, swords, jewels, rare medicines, all of the sorts only the wealthiest, highest ranked families could afford. 

This meant all the inns and restaurants rubbed their hands together and hurried to make ready for the great influx of young masters. 

The whorehouses rejoiced most of all. Men often preferred to visit prostitutes well away from home. Tourism always guaranteed good business.

There was much work to be done before the day's auction. Miss Song had planned, on the first day, to hold a feast for the gentlemen. Theirs was not the only whorehouse on the street, and although they held a particularly good reputation, simply keeping their doors open would not do. To hold a chance to compete, they had to be the brightest, warmest, most inviting house in the city, and Miss Song tore her hair out trying to make it so. 

Meng Yao was yanked from one task to the next, told to carry this and that. In his status as a half-grown boy, he was given every possible running job. 

He carried instructions from the whorehouse to the wine merchant, then the wine merchant caught him and bid him run to the tavernkeeper, while he was here, the tavernkeeper sent him to the butcher, the butcher to the milkwoman, and of course no one gave him anything for his troubles. 

Once he finally returned, hours later, he was struck across the legs again, for dawdling, and, of course, he was expected to get back up and run again tomorrow. 

So the next day he sprung up on his bruised legs and ran with a command for the tailor, for new dresses to be made in preparation of the festivities. As he turned to leave, the tailor caught him by his collar and told him to run to the blacksmith for him, and to be quick about it.

Meng Yao bowed his head and took on his sweetest voice, to explain that the madam would want him back immediately as he had many more errands to run. He was pleasantly surprised when the tailor let him go right away and made no fuss at all. Little Meng Yao spent the whole run back congratulating himself on handling the situation so well. 

His good mood fell right away when, at the end of the day, he returned home to find the tailor speaking to his madam. His intuition for approaching beatings was knife-sharp by now, and he had to fight with all his strength of will not to run back outside as fast as he could. He knew by now that running only made things worse.

"Of course Madam Song, don't make trouble for the boy, I'm sure he only did what he was told, I just thought I'd get your approval myself is all, if you don't lend your errand boy to your clients, hopefully you can make an exception for me. Its just so convenient, you see." The tailor said, with a polite smie that was barely above a sneer. Meng Yao's already well-beaten legs almost gave out as the Madam's sharp eyes sparked at him. He could almost hear the words in his ears before they were said.

"Lazy boy! What's this business about not running errands for Mr. Chen? Don't you know he's a friend of this establishment? You were trying to get out of work again weren't you! Meimei, go get the willow branch!" 

And so Meng Yao was beaten again, on the front of his legs rather than the back this time. As a result, he could not lay down without pain on any side. He cried in his pillow for most of the night. It was shameful to cry at his age, he was almost ten, yet he could not seem to go more than a few days with his eyes dry. 

The next day, he was made to return to the tailor's shop and do his errands. He bowed and smiled and answered him politely, gritting his teeth through the stinging of his legs, but wherever he was sent next he made sure not to linger. He made himself appear in a pitiful hurry, and ran back out when the merchants had their backs turned. It did not work everytime, but it was enough to allow him back home before too long, and on the third day he successfully avoided another beating. 

Then finally the day of the auction came, and the brothel opened its warm inviting doors, letting out the steam and scents of their braised duck, crispy lacquered skin shimmering like so many jewel-boxes, warm plump cloudy dumplings, lighter than air and springy like the round cheeks of the babies the girls hid in their rooms, fragrant, shocking red soups, simmering with salt and fat, and finally, careful towers of crispy sesame balls, carefully couched with powder.

It was that last thing Meng Yao couldn't stop thinking about. That to get at the treats these mountains would need to be toppled. He fixated his eyes on the pile, waiting for it to be taken apart by greedy hands.

But it never was. Somehow, the strangely constructed piles of sugar remained untouched all night, as large as looming mountains scooped out on dinner-plates.

The young masters and respectable lords, full from other, better foods at more respectable restaurants, only nibbled at the meats, picked at the dumplings, their hands too full of silk and laughing girls to leave any room for sweets. The rooms swelled with guests and emptied out again, and soon came that fateful hour in the night, when every guest was busy with every girl, and the lower rooms were deserted as graves, safe for little Meng Yao to wander in and out and play pretend at anything he liked. 

He would play pretend he was a little lord left to wait for an hour, for his majestic, gold-shimmering father, his silver shaped brothers and his jade buffed uncles to return and take him home, to the petal soft ivory of their homes, never to see the smoke of the city again, to topple piles of sesame pastries and only laugh when they hit the ground.

Meng Yao stopped dead in his tracks, his hands shaking with fear that he'd even had the idea.

Merely thinking about it was already punishment. He felt as sick to his stomach as if he was already on his knees, holding onto his arms, waiting for the blows. Oh, the blows were not the worst part, by any means, what he dreaded was the words, Miss Song and her girls telling him he was greedy, disrespectful, lazy and selfish. He could hear it now, still as he was unable to tear his eyes away from the tower of sweets, so much his stomach tensed just as if they were really in the room. 

He crawled slowly to the plush red divan and sat there, one leg under him, transfixed and horrified, close enough to the crackling pastries he needed only to reach a hand, and felt tears crawling up his throat. 

He squeezed his little fists together, convinced that any moment now they would escape his control and topple the plates of their own will. 

No, he had to leave, he had to look away and run out of the room, and he would be safe, but sitting here looking at them he felt as though he'd already committed the crime. He was too upset, by now, to act rationally. He was even dimly aware of it.

He could not see another way out, now. He would topple the sesame tower, he would, but perhaps he could still get out of the beating. Perhaps he could lie, and make up something. He could get out of the room and hide, he could say he saw one of the clients do it, as he was leaving, he could feign complete ignorance.

Yes, a client, a client would do perfectly. It was the man with the deep blue coat and square hat he had seen earlier. He hadn't left yet but he seemed in a hurry, or if not him, someone else. He would hide, look at the men who passed through and pick one. 

Then the door opened, startling Meng Yao so violently he almost fell off the divan. It was a thin man in a bright, cheap looking golden robe.

He turned and finished saying his goodbyes to a giggling girl, the one that everyone called Cao Meimei, with her small red mouth and little red nails, and who always dressed in green. A grim looking servant in similar fabric followed behind him, holding his hat and purse and standing very straight.

The door closed behind them, and the two men strolled across the room and stopped, right in front of Meng Yao's astonished, wide eyes.

The man in the golden robe bent beside him and carefully plucked a crispy ball from the delicate tower, leaving the construction perfectly intact. He placed the pastry whole in his strangely wide mouth, and left the room just as he came.

Meng Yao was left to stare at the intact construction, completely dumbfounded. 

\----

A few minutes later, Meng Yao had climbed up the shed in the back of the house and hidden himself in a nook under the roof, where birds sometimes nested in winter, cradling his little treat between his fingers, still somehow warm. 

He was very afraid, still, almost trembling, convinced that at any moment he would be found out, and so he was to eat it as fast as possible before a shrill voice demanded he come down and give the pastry back, and get the beating he deserved.

But it was so pleasant having it in his hands like this, even as it was awful and terrifying. 'I've got it, it's mine.' He thought, even as he didn't really have it, not until it was in his mouth, and it certainly wasn't his.

He laid back against the curve in the nook and looked at it for a few moments longer, warm and sweet smelling, shining white with sugar in the dark. 

He slowly approached it to his mouth, shaking a little from the anticipation, and took a nibble off the corner. The smallest bite he could, to draw it out.

Then he heard a crack, a branch breaking somewhere in the courtyard, and the fear dropped like a stone into his belly. 

Someone was coming for him.

He tried to shove the rest of the pastry in his mouth, like the thin man in gold, but his mouth was small, and he just stuffed his cheeks with far too much dough, almost choking himself with it. While he laboriously chewed through the treat, no more joy to be gotten out of it, he risked a look over the little parapet, down in the courtyard to see who it was who would be the first to beat him.

The only living thing there was a dog, mangy and thin from the streets, clawing at the old tree in the center to get at a nest of eggs.

Meng Yao looked at his empty hands and the sugar left on them, and felt his eyes sting with tears.

It was silly, to be upset over this. He was almost ten, he wasn't going to cry over a pastry. He wasn't. 

He wasn't, he told himself, and his eyes grew hotter and hotter with every second, until they spilled over his stuffed face. What a picture he made, if Cao Meimei saw him like this she would laugh. He couldn't even breathe properly now, with his stuffy nose.

He refused to spit it out, however, and kept on chewing miserably, swallowing every bit down until the fruit of his misdeeds was completely gone, and all that was left was the sugar on his hands. 

He got what crumbs he could from them, and miserably made his way back down, to the little well so he could clean his hands and wash down the flour in his mouth.

At the well however, worse than Cao Meimei, worse than one of the girls, worse perhaps even than Miss Song, was his mother, drawing water with a little pail.

She had seen him, he couldn't simply hide. There was flour and sugar all over his face and hands, she would know. And perhaps he could lie but...

Well, the most important skill, Cao Meimei said, when you wanted to survive in this world, was to know what you were, and be that thing completely. You needed to pick what you were going to be, and then commit to being that, and not hesitate, or flip around and try to be something else at the same time. 

If you wanted to change, then you needed to change, and be that other thing. But you couldn't be one thing and also another. 

You couldn't be both a prostitute and a wife, for example, Cao meimei said. If you wanted to become a wife, from being a prostitute, then you needed to leave the work behind and be fully a wife. If you wanted to be a prostitute, then you shouldn't try to be a wife. Women who tried to do both never fared well either way. 

That had always been Meng Yao's biggest flaw. He never managed to just be one thing. He wanted to be a liar and a thief, because he was treated like one anyway, and liars and thieves got pastries and money and gold, and other things that could never be for them, and they got away with it and lived rich, if they were good which he could be, with practice.

But he also wanted to be good, like his mother told him, be a little pearl, and a gentleman one day, and he didn't want to cause her to cry or be ashamed. He wanted her proud of him. 

He wanted to be good for his own sake too, sometimes, so he could really tell Miss Song and her girls that what they said wasn't true, when they called him greedy and selfish. So he could tell himself that as well. He wanted to be good, and yet also he didn't, and sometimes he was and sometimes he wasn't, and he never fared well either way.

He could have come up with a lie, easily, he was good enough at them, and even if he wasn't his mother always trusted him. Or he could have told the truth, his mother never beat him. She would only have been disappointed, that her son was not only a thief but a stupid one too. He didn't do either. Or both, he stayed there, frozen in place, shaking. He said nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave a comment!😁


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey looks like im posting two chapters in one day! Enjoy :)

He didn't know how to be just one thing, this was his biggest flaw.

In Qinghe's army, if you were going to work hard, and be dutiful, and serious, and make a name for yourself in the honorable way, then you had to stick to it, keep your head down. 

It would be very stupid to also sleep with the clan leader so as to speed your way along. 

Because of this, he was taunted, jeered at, his real accomplishments were derided and all his rewards felt unearned. All his hard work simply turned to dust in his mouth.

In Qinghe's army, if you were going to sleep with the clan leader for your advancement, and leverage your bedroom position for a promotion, play at politics and make use of him ruthlessly, then you had to stick to it, be loyal to yourself, keep your wits.

It would be very stupid to also be in love with him. 

Because of this he was mistrusted, unhappy in work and in love by having mixed them up so, and ended up unemployed and brokenhearted with the same sentence.

In Qinghe's army, if you were going to betray your sect leader, kill one of his men, lie to him, trample his trust and his principles, then why would you still throw yourself in front of a sword for him? 

He ended up with a murder charge, a broken heart, and a blade in the shoulder, all because he couldn't make up his mind.

\-------

Meng Yao was well-used to pain. He knew how to endure.

It served him well in the days after Qinghe. Had he not had so much experience in surviving pain, he might have simply laid down on the side of the road and died, letting the vultures pick his twisted body apart.

The wound in his chest burned with every step. A doctor had dressed it before he was sent away, but the constant movement had caused chafing and eventually infection. 

He would heal if he could rest, he was a cultivator now, wounds like this were no longer fatal. 

The thought of a bed where he could sleep was all that kept him upright. Just one more step, dear, he heard in his mother's voice. Just one more step. Just one more step. 

Later, once he'd found a town, far enough from Qinghe that no news of his crime would have spread, he laid in a small sickbed and suffered some more.

He tossed with fever, sweated, dreamed, before finally waking up fearful and disoriented. 

Dawn broke through the blinds, illuminating all the wounds that had been dealt him like a sick lamplight.

The wound to his pride was red. Sustained when he crashed down from his position at Mingjue's side, a vice-general, a military man. It was so high compared to where he'd started, he'd been on his way to becoming someone. 

Not just a son of a whore. Maybe. Someday.

But now he was back in the dirt again. The dirt he'd been born in. The dirt his father had kicked him into. He could never escape that taste of dust perpetually in his mouth. 

The wound to his heart was yellow. The final wound, piercing him where Mingjue's sword had not, when he turned from him and ordered he never show his face in Qinghe again. 

Nie Mingjue was nothing like Meng Yao.

He knew perfectly well how to be one thing, completely, wholly, without hesitation.

When you had his trust, you had all of it. His admiration. His friendship. His love. 

Meng Yao had basked in the warmth of it, the certainty of his friendship. 

And now that Mingjue had taken it back, Meng Yao shuddered with the cold knowledge that this, too, was certain and total.

Not a drop of love was left for him in Nie Mingjue's reliable heart.

From the depths of his little bed, in between feverish thrashings, Meng Yao would remember it suddenly, in intervals, like bursts of cold air. 

Then, eventually, the fever broke, and he put it behind him. 

He buried the wound in his heart under liters of bile, and when he put his bare feet on the ground he thought only of dust, and his determination never to taste it again. 

\-------

Fail. Hit the ground. Get up. Try again.

He would not waver this time. He would be of one mind.

He needed somewhere new to start again.

Having left Mingjue the way he did, none of his allies would consider taking him. He'd be lucky not to be chased out with a sword.

He had worried, before, about the growing forces of the Wen. In that last attack that worry had turned to panic.

The Wen were strong, too strong for even Nie Mingjue. Everyday he'd swallowed the ball in his throat and fought the urge to flee, berating himself to stay and face death like a man.

He'd done it, on the cold floor with his bleeding shoulder. He'd tilted his head and accepted it.

But Nie Mingjue hadn't even given him that. 'You'll get nothing from me. Get up now, and live with what you are.' said the turn of his back.

So he would. He wouldn't die for Mingjue, or the Nie, or his father, or anyone. He would live for himself and die for himself, and all the lords and his father and his commander and his men could all go fuck themselves.

He would be one thing. A smooth, glossy plaque of intent, on which you could spread a mantle of lies, like dung on a jade table. This was the way to win, for men like Meng Yao.

He would go to Wen Ruohan and pledge his loyalty to him, and he would lie and he would live.

Nie Mingjue had shown him well what his own loyalty was worth. 

\----

His shoulder still hurt, and his pride howled like a beast, but his heart had been made quiet, compact and unobtrusive. 

And so it did not bother him, as he carefully tread the burned fields made red with corpses by the passing Wen troops.

He had followed them quietly for two weeks, unseen, gathering information on their comings and goings, their victories and defeats, their needs.

He knew he could not simply go to Qishan. He needed something to give Wen Ruohan. A token of loyalty, a chip to bargain with.

Something to make sure he wouldn't be kicked down into the dirt again.

So he stayed hidden, and he observed. There were things in his possession still. He'd once been vice-general of the Nie.

But how much of what he had was obsolete? How much was valuable? He could neither undersell nor oversell himself. He needed to know the exact value of everything.

It was dangerous to trail them like this. He wasn't sure yet, whether to approach this particular garrison and make himself known.

Should he come vengeful and proud, as a former vice-general, tossed aside by his commander and filled with precious information? Or should he lie and pretend to be a villager who wished to join an army he knew to be the winning one?

Both would lead to distrust and fear.

Should he paint his face and change his clothing, and blend among the camp followers, the women and few boys none of the soldiers were wary of? Make his way into a leader's bed again, pull the knowledge he wanted directly from the source?

It was still too dangerous. In war, uncertainty was the most dangerous threat. He needed some kind of thread to pull. Something solid to hang onto.

So he kept on walking, hiding, waiting for something better.

He lost them for a few days, waking too late and finding them packed up and gone much faster than he'd expected.

He only caught up to them three days later, slogging through red mud. 

He could see the billowing banners, the tents in the distance.

But the closer he came, the more blood pounded at his ears.

There were no sounds reaching him at all. The sharp wind carried nothing, only the fluttering leaves, and a smell of copper.

He broke through the treeline and gripped a nearby branch to steady himself.

Every Wen soldier in that Garrison lay dead in piles, their horses the only creatures still standing. Some of them, scratching worriedly at the bodies of their masters, still whinnied faintly. Who would feed them now?

The camp followers were nowhere in sight, no doubt they had fled when the massacre had started.

What army had they encountered? Their numbers were not great enough to withstand a coordinated attack, but Meng Yao had left Qinghe and its surrounding lords a squabbling mess, unable to solve their petty grievances for long enough to properly unite. 

Had an alliance been formed?

Who was behind it?

Meng Yao kept hidden inside the charred treeline, unsure if stragglers were still around to spot him.

As he was dressed like a peasant, they probably would not kill him on sight, but still, he did not want to take risks.

Slowly he approached the edge of the camp, looking at every fallen soldier for signs of a different uniform. 

He found it, four men, blue and white in the distance.

After waiting a long time, listening for signs of anyone left nearby, he finally got the courage to approach.

There it was. The Lan crest.

He checked every single corpse for signs of life, the Lan and the Wen, and carefully eased from them what he could.

Silver headpieces, coin purses, some of them carried precious herbs and potions.

The sword jewels he left alone, as there was no way to break them and make them unrecognizable. Merchants accepted broken silver, they closed their eyes to the likelihood that it was stolen, but ornate gemstones could not be explained away.

Only when he was back into the treeline, safe and invisible with his pockets full, did he let his posture go a little.

He kicked the bark of a stump in his way and hissed curses between his teeth. Fuck. Two weeks of effort, gone. His meal ticket, gone. What now?

He crouched and pulled his head in his hands. He tried to breathe. His shoulder still hurt and now it was burning, almost screaming with anger.

He stayed there and breathed through it. 

When he stood up again, his face was his once more. Perfectly neutral.

Things like this happened, in time of war. They would happen again, it was no use being upset.

He peeked out of the treeline and started his journey forwards.

There was a path the troops had been following. He would try to find where they had been headed. Perhaps he would meet something else there.

A town maybe. Or another unit. An enemy settlement.

He passed the site of the carnage and focused on the road under his feet. The footsteps in the dust, the marks of the hooves.

Hooves.

One single track.

A horse was missing from the camp. Yes, all this time they'd had twenty, but only nineteen remained behind him. No corpse. 

Military horses did not run from their posts. Someone had taken it.

How many people? Lan soldiers? Or Wen? How far had they gone?

It was rash. He could be killed for this, but the massacre meant whoever it was had to be in terrible condition. Lan or Wen, they would have information for him. 

If he took them by surprise he could make them talk. The little dagger under his sleeve wasn't much, but for one injured man, it would be enough. If there were two men, why not take two horses?

He moved away from the path and crouched down. The high grass there was enough to cover him.

He followed the path from afar, watching for signs of passage. Here, a broken branch, there, tracks of mud in the grass. 

Then, in the horizon, the mare he'd been following, her saddle half-torn, quietly nosing at a patch of green.

No, it wasn't green, there was a shape there. White. The Lan soldier.

And no one else around. 

Meng Yao carefully made his way to the body, clutching at the knife in his sleeve. Of course. Of course this would happen, he'd been stupid enough to get his hopes up and the soldier had died before he could get to him, of course.

Still, he carefully lowered himself to make sure, trembling. If the man wasn't dead, it could mean even worse things. Startled, the man might attack him. Meng Yao could tell how large he was, even slumped and curled over. He was no longer sure his weapon would be enough.

So, carefully, he pushed the body over to see his face, and check for breathing.

The soldier startled so violently that Meng Yao's blade slid into his hand.

Before he could bury it in the man's throat, however, Meng Yao recognized him.

It was Zewu-Jun who stared up at him, feverish and half dead.

Meng Yao's heart was beating out of his throat.

He'd found it. 

His meal ticket. His bargaining chip.

Wen Ruohan would not kick him now.

He slid the knife back up his sleeve and bowed his head, turning his face to something gentle and worried.

''Zewu-Jun, please keep still, I will help you." He said, and the man's eyes gently dimmed with trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes i am that brand of jgy apologist who thinks a-yao is a little bit evil and that's fine! No it hasn't all been a lie let me assure you he's stupid in love and keeps catching feelings when he doesn't mean to and thats like one of his biggest flaws in his own opinion, but yeah i do think he's lied to lxc for their entire relationship and if that makes me a bad xiyao then ill take it...
> 
> i just think its hot how ayao has literally never been honest with anyone in his entire life including himself...he's my baby i love him


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: very graphic descriptions of physical injuries and general gross gory stuff
> 
> Ayao's kind of a fucked up little man and i love that about him

Getting him off the horse was yet another ordeal. 

Zewu-Jun practically fell with all his weight on him. Being almost half his size, Meng Yao felt the wound in his chest reopen. He hid his face into his own shoulder and bit the cloth of his robe to keep from screaming.

Once more, acting, cajoling Zewu-Jun into heroically using his own feet to carry himself to the bed.

Laying him on the threadbare bed. Last ordeal. He had to slowly, very slowly lower him down. There was blood seeping through. Gashes that had been crusted black were now wet and open, streaming red. He couldn't risk jostling him any worse.

The horse ride had been a terrible idea. Perhaps he should have tried to make him walk. There was too much blood now, and a strange, putrid odor that announced infection.

He laid him down and told him not to move at all, useless since Zewu-Jun probably could not have moved if he'd wanted to.

He ran outside, grabbing the half broken down bucket at the side of the door and went to fill it with river water.

He then moved to the hearth of the shack and sat down to twist a whittled stick in place with a piece of string. Eventually, the dry grass he'd left there yesterday began to fume, building the fire back up.

There was still a bit of wood left, but he would need more.

He grabbed pieces of flooring that had broken away, revealing the naked red earth underneath, and threw them on the fire.

Meng Yao attached the filled bucket over the pit, before taking out a piece of cloth from his pouch and dropping it in the water.

Right. Time to get started.

Zewu-Jun hadn't fallen unconscious yet, somehow. He was still dimly but deliberately awake, as if kept alive by nothing but stubborn determination.

Suit yourself, Meng Yao thought.

He took out his knife again and sliced open the clothing on his chest. Expensive fabric. It was a shame. But even cut fabric could be sold, it wasn't all wasted, though he would need to wash it thoroughly.

He detached the belt, with the sword, the flute, the qiankun bag, and slowly removed all the fabric.

In the places that had wounds it stuck, hard and stiff, and pulling them off had to be done fast, in one harsh move. It hurt enough to make Zewu-Jun scream.

He had to cut entire pieces off, and drop them to the side. He slashed the sleeves and saw the burns on his arms. Bright red grooves snaking up the wrist, into patches of milky welts over blackened, dead flesh.

Yes, the Wen loved fire. 

He slashed the trousers and revealed the gash inside the thigh, that had torn open further from holding himself upright on the horse and was now vomiting with pain. He could see the tendon had torn. Cut. Lying limp outside the skin like a pink worm slithering from the wound.

The torso was so bad Meng Yao could barely stand to look at it, a beehive of cankerous arrows lodged in the flesh, shattered outwards, already rotting purple and weeping.

It was so much worse than it had seemed when he'd found him.

Meng Yao wavered on his feet slightly. He was no stranger to wounds, and to death, but this...

He'd wondered earlier how it was possible that four men had wiped out an entire garrison. Now he saw that the fight had been something else. Despair to stay alive rather than planned destruction.

The Wen had come across them by surprise, not the other way around.

There was something about a wounded body that made it terribly impersonal. 

Meng Yao had healed wounds before. It turned the mind, the body became an object to work on, rather than the receptacle of a soul.

Mingjue had been shot with an arrow once, during a campaign, stuck in a siege. There had been no doctor around, so Meng Yao had had to pull it out with a knife and sear the wound closed.

In those moments, it had stopped being the body of his lover, that radiating, beloved body. It was an object. A paper crane, a piece of cloth, something torn to stitch up again.

The soul was in the body, but it was not the body. The body held the soul, it was not the soul.

But now, here, the wounds were so severe and horrible that it pushed the mind even further, deeper, back into humanity in the worst of ways. He could not rid himself of his awareness of the man that  _ was _ this torn mangled body. Split sinews and bones that leaked with suppuration, flesh, pink and marbled, polluted with nerves and chewed apart by suffering.

Meng Yao felt his vision start to swim.

The soul was in the body, the body held the soul, the body was the soul. The soul was the body, it was a horrible - horrible horrible  _ thing _ . There is no escape from the body, there is no escape from pain, there is no way out, you are your body there is no soul what is done to you is done to  _ you _ .

He looked up at Zewu-Jun's neck and thought of what it would be like to slit his throat now, to cut methodically through the cartilage and cording to separate the head, now. He could do it. He was capable of it.

The grinding of the cartilage, the spurting of blood over his hand. The pain in Zewu-Jun's body. What would his eyes look like?

Meng Yao stood up and ran outside, falling to his knees over a patch of grass, and vomited up everything he'd eaten that day.

He stood there, squatting, arms around himself, trying to breathe softly again. 

Back inside the shack, the water was roaring with heat, boiling furiously.

Meng Yao pulled himself together and went back in. He took his knife out and thrust it into the fire.

He stood there until the blade was glowing orange. By then he'd regained control over his face.

He walked in and set the knife next to the bed, leaving it to cool while he looked through his own pouch for items of use. There were the bandages that Qinghe's doctor had given him. Two sets, one he was wearing now, that would need to be changed as he'd started bleeding again, and another set that he'd washed only yesterday. One set would not be enough for all these wounds.

Then there was the moistening salve, that he'd paid a lot of money for a few towns back. He was almost out of it already.

But he also had a recipe for field medicine that he'd learned in Qinghe. They were in a lush forest area, the plants he needed should be in abundance here. Right.

First he would clean the wounds. He could worry about salve later.

He set everything down in a neat row and went outside, another bucket in hand, to the river. He washed his hands with water and with the washing bean he carried with him for bathing.

Once he returned, his bucket filled with river water, he placed it next to where Zewu-Jun was resting and took the wooden spoon that hung over the fireplace. He used the blunt end of it to pull the cloth from the boiling water.

He waited until it was cool enough to touch, wrung it, and set about cleaning the blood off Zewu-Jun's body. The first step was clearing the way so he could see.

When the cloth was too gorged with red, spongy and speckled with black clumps, he plunged it into the bucket of cold water, to dissolve all the blood and crusts, wrung it out, scrubbed it, and placed it upon the wooden spoon again so he could dip it back into the boiling water.

After twenty seconds, he pulled it out, wrung it, and started again.

Fifteen minutes passed before he'd cleaned all the blood and pus from his body, and the wounds appeared, clean and distinct.

Now for the difficult part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor lil meng yao just wanted to be a cold emotionless badass who only looks out for number 1 but then accidentally ropes himself into caring for a brutally injured man's wounds and turns out its hard to do that and not feel any empathy😔RIP
> 
> "I will be of one mind" it takes him ONE DAY
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone leaving comments, i love and appreciate every one of them (Yes including the troll, whose constant "congrats on properly showing how xiyao is toxic and jgy is evil" was close to being bang on the money so congratulations😂) 
> 
> keep telling me your thoughts i love hearing them even if they're bad, and if you wanna talk to me my twitter is @sufjan_cats
> 
> I love you all!!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaaa! Suprise, its a double update! This chapter was almost finished and i thought id post them both at the same time but in the end it took me a bit longer to finish, oh well! 
> 
> Cw: same as last chapter. Gory wound tending, medical procedures that you SHOULD NOT emulate under any circumstances, and also spooky stuff :D

Meng Yao reached into his bag and pulled out the little leather pouch he put his coins in, then went back to Zewu-Jun.

He passed a hand over his face to check if he was still there.

Lan Xichen blinked, and looked vaguely in his direction, so Meng Yao pulled closer.

"Zewu-Jun, I'm going to pull out all the arrows in your chest, can you understand me?"

He nodded weakly. Barely any movement at all.

"Good. Here is my leather purse, to hold in your mouth. Once the wounds are clean, I'm going to cut away the parts that are rotten, then I'm going to sear them. Are you ready?"

He nodded again.

Meng Yao took a deep breath and reached for the knife. He approached his hand to the blade to feel the heat that radiated off of it. Cool enough.

He placed his hand on a clean strip of skin and began the digging, the slippery work of sticking his knife and his fingers inside the flesh, pulling arrows out bit by bit.

They weren't whole, so he could not simply discard them. He dropped the slick pieces of metal into the bloody water for now.

Each made a horrible, wet sound on impact, punctuating every few minutes of his difficult work.

Plop.

Plop.

Plop.

By the time he was finished, there was a new river of blood covering the surface of Zewu-Jun's body, slowly running down to the cloth and the bed underneath. His hands were slick with it. His knife. His vision. Zewu-Jun hadn't screamed. Hadn't moved. The only evidence of pain were the tears running down his face like a perpetual stream. Meng Yao made sure not to look.

He dipped the knife and his hands into the cold water and went to get the cloth. He cleaned the body again, and Zewu-Jun stilled under the warmth. The taut, shaking muscles relaxed, and the body regained a touch of regularity. There was a form under all this flesh, still, despite all evidence.

With this stillness, Meng Yao realized his own hands were shaking. He was exhausted.

The sky outside had turned a warm orange.

He would rest for a few moments. It would not be good to shake in the tasks he had ahead of him.

"Zewu-Jun, we will rest a little now. Just for a few minutes." He took the leather purse from his mouth and went to his Qiankun bag again.

There were essentials in it, along with the pilfered valuables. A wooden bowl, a spoon, a cup. A blanket. Some bread.

He took out the cup and ladled some of the boiling water in it.

The water level had dropped significantly. It would be the right time to add more, and find some wood.

He sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb the body that lay on it, and sipped on the hot water, burning his tongue on it a little.

He turned and looked at Zewu-Jun's half-conscious face, his cracked lips.

It would be good for him to drink, but he could not sit him up in this state. Getting him to lift only his head still carried the risk of the water spilling and burning him.

He put the cup down and came closer.

"Zewu-Jun, do you have any wounds in your mouth?"

Zewu-Jun only looked up at him and blinked. He was beyond formulating answers. Meng Yao held in the sigh that came to him and gently put his fingers over the man's chin.

"I'll just have a look. I won't touch anything, I just need to see." Zewu-Jun complied, and let him part his jaw. Nothing obvious, nothing terrible that needed immaculate care. If he had a few cuts, Meng Yao could not see them, they would probably heal fine.

So he let go, and went to the pile of fabric that he'd cut away, the little pieces that had been left relatively white, no blood or pus or dirt. He picked up the cleanest square he could find and shook it a few times, ridding it of dust as best he could.

It was not truly clean, but he had nothing else. Zewu-Jun would manage.

He went to fill his cup again and kneeled on the floor at Zewu-Jun's side. He folded the cloth between his fingers and dipped it into the cup, leaving it long enough to saturate the fabric.

"Zewu-Jun. Open your mouth, I'm going to give you some water."

He blinked and weakly parted his lips, for Meng Yao to place the wet cloth. He correctly bit down on it and sucked the water out.

This was how they had fed HeiHei, Yan-Jie's baby, after Yan-Jie had died giving birth to him. None of the other girls were giving suck at the time, so they dipped cloth into various foods, water and cow's milk with sugar, and cereal paste, until he was weaned, and could eat soft foods and drink from cups.

Meng Yao kept at it until the cup was empty. By then, Zewu-Jun's eyes had gotten heavy. He took the cloth from his mouth, and the eyes finally closed.

Yes, it would be good for him to sleep.

He could not leave the rotting flesh alone too long, but a few hours of peace would be good for both of them. He had enough to do anyways.

He put the cup away and took the dirty bucket outside, walking down into the river.

Once there, he carefully emptied the red water into it, slow enough not to disturb the metal shards at the bottom.

He undid the leather cuffs that kept his sleeve folded and shoved all the arrow pieces in it, before pulling it back up and rebuttoning the cuff.

Then he emptied the rest of the bucket and immersed it fully in the riverbed. A loud *plop* resonating as water rushed to fill the cavity.

He washed it thoroughly and returned with a bucketful of water. With it, he replaced the one that had been hung over the fire, emptied it over the window, and tossed a few more pieces of floorboard in the hearth.

Night had fallen outside, by the time he finished filling the empty bucket with twigs and a type of herb he could use to make a compress. He hadn't found the ingredients for the field salve he'd learned from the Nies, so he'd fallen back on these leaves he remembered from childhood.

The women in his house called it Mousetail, though its real name was probably something else. It grew everywhere, soft and reedy with a thousand little leaves sprouting outwards from the stem. It was often drunk in tea to stop a girl's excess of monthly blood.

Crushed into a paste it could also stop bleeding and prevent infection. Not as well as some of the rare, delicate plants that filled the apothecaries, but for children's scabbed knees and little cuts it was enough.

For this...well. It would have to do.

On his way back he tossed two stones from the river into his bucket, one very large and one small and sharp, and struggled back up the hill, finally, to the house.

Zewu-Jun was still sleeping.

Meng Yao hurried to feed the low, spluttering fire, and soon the entire room became bathed in orange light.

He filled a cup with water, placed the large stone down on the floor, and sat with it between his legs. He poured the water over the plant and, with the small stone, ground it to a paste until he'd filled his wooden bowl.

He then placed the bowl on the little table and took out the metal from his sleeve. He laid all the shards out and began the work of reconstructing every arrowhead, to see how many pieces were missing, still buried in Zewu-Jun's flesh.

Half an hour later, he had all the arrows side by side, whole but for the cracks and shatters that ran through them.

Three shards were unaccounted for. He would have to dig and look for them.

So he got up and went to prepare for it, taking the knife he'd washed earlier and holding it to the fire again, then fanning it to make it cool faster.

He would need something else to sear the wounds.

The sword.

He walked to the corner where he'd left Zewu-Jun's things and took the sword in hand, sliding it from its sheath.

It was beautiful. Ice sharp, light as air and glowing like moonlight. How much did it cost to make a sword like that? How much could he get for it? The tassel, the carved handle, even just the naked metal? It was a shame to use it for something like this.

Well. He had nothing else. He leaned the blade against the wall and returned to Zewu-Jun.

He woke him up by pressing a hand on his forehead. It was hot, but not so hot as to be alarming, and when Zewu-Jun opened his eyes they were clearer than before.

He seemed to have regained some consciousness. It was not quite a blessing, as it also meant he would be more aware of the pain that was to come.

"Zewu-Jun. Rest is over."

Meng Yao saw the difficult bobbing of his throat, the swallowing, the fear of pain creeping up into his eyes.

"There isn't so much to do, it won't take long." he lied, placing the leather purse back into Zewu-Jun's mouth. 

He braced his hand again, in the same spot as before, but this time instead of metal he was digging out putrid flesh. He dropped the bits of rot into that same bucket, until he was done with the wound.

Then, he got up and touched the tip of the sword to the fire, red hot, and laid it on the wound to sear it closed.

This time Zewu-Jun did scream, dull through the leather over the sizzling of flesh, and Meng Yao had to look away. He did not hear it. He heard nothing at all.

He repeated the process, over and over, punctuated by the Plop. Plop. Plop. of the pieces in the bucket, and the horrible stink of human flesh. Zewu-Jun's screaming that he could not hear.

Cutting.

Searing.

A dull scream.

Cutting.

Cutting.

Cutting.

A scratching sound that felt like it was coming from inside his head. Exhaustion, probably.

It felt like days had passed when he finished, although when he looked up, the sky outside was only black, a darkness so thick it seemed almost to materialize through the door, like a cloaked man standing at the threshold, head turned towards him. 

Meng Yao swiftly got up to close it, then added more wood to the fire.

He pressed his fingers to his temple and rubbed away the exhaustion.

He stood and watched the fire for a moment, a break from Zewu-Jun's silent tears. It was done. The horrible, prurient beehive had turned to a series of closed, red welts. It was ugly, but no longer screamed of death.

He took a deep breath. No. It wasn't done. There was the wound on his leg, still. He went around the bed, to the other side, to see the wound in his thigh from up close.

It hadn't started bleeding again, which was good, the tendon was still there, lying limp and out of place.

It was bad, wasn't it? A cut tendon generally meant losing the use of the limb completely. But he'd met many cultivators, by now, and if the cultivation was suitably high there was nothing that could not fuse back together and heal. As long as the wound was clean, free of debris and infection, the spiritual core would do the rest.

He'd found it unsettling at first. Unbelievable, even. He still did in fact.

But what else could he do, but believe it? Healing something like this was far beyond his capabilities. All he could think to do was carefully nudge the cut cord back in place.

Miraculously he succeeded in doing it without causing any bleeding.

And now what? Had he had string he would have stitched the wound closed, but there was nothing on hand.

He could burn it closed, but no. There was no blood, so the risk outweighed the benefit.

Cauterizing was good to stop a wound from bleeding to death, but it increased the risk of infection. The wound was open but it was clean and bloodless. He did not have enough salve to play loose with the potential for festering.

He decided to wait and see.

As for the blisters, he had no idea what to do. He'd washed them with cool water, cleaned out the ones that had already burst. He feared touching the skin there in case he broke open any more. The one thing he knew was that blisters should be left intact as much as possible.

All that was left was the salve, then. He took the bowl in hand and with his two middle fingers he carefully applied it over the raised welts of the chest, until the torso was green and glistening. The arms. The leg. Eventually, all the wounded, ugly areas were covered, and Zewu-Jun looked like a boulder in a field, slowly overgrown with moss.

Meng Yao had taken the leather from his teeth, and told him to sleep again, if he could.

Now he would not move, Meng Yao could hold off on applying the bandages until tomorrow.

He rose to his feet and immediately stumbled. His vision blurred, flashing with the movement of a restless black shape. He grabbed onto the fire mantle to steady himself.

It was still black outside, no sign of a rising sun. He would eat first. And change the bandage on his chest.

He took the bucket of water off the fire and began to undress, removing everything until he was down to his trousers.

The bleeding had seeped through the layers of linen. It painfully stuck to his skin, and he felt the wound tear open slightly wider when he pulled the bandage off.

Shit. Now that his task was done, he slowly began to feel just how much the wound had been throbbing all this time, the menacing way it had started to burn.

He carried the water bucket just outside, by the door, and bent over perpendicularly to wash his upper body as best he could in the thick darkness.

When he was done he splashed his face over the water bucket, and noticed in it the reflection of the full moon.

With the ripples on the surface, it looked like a crying face. Bone white.

Meng Yao opted to leave the bucket outside, and when he closed the door he carefully pushed the large river rock against it.

The door did not close well. He wanted to make sure he would not be woken by a gust of wind blowing it open.

He took one piece of bread from his bag and slid against the wall, down to the floor. His fingers were stiff around the food, every bite was slow and labored. He could hear the slight clicking in his jaw that betrayed he'd been grinding his teeth for a long time.

He hadn't really eaten enough, but decided he could leave it for tomorrow. He'd probably be ravenous in the morning.

So he struggled back to his feet and went to place it on the table.

The arrows were all pointing towards him, a full turn from how he remembered leaving them.

He stumbled slightly again, exhaustion closing his eyes for him. He couldn't even remember what he'd done a few hours ago. It was time to sleep.

He went to Zewu-Jun's bedside, dipping his fingers in the bowl of salve again to daub it onto his own wound, then redid his bandage, turning it so the blood soaked parts lay against healthy skin.

He added more wood to the fire, enough for the rest of the night, and went to lie next to Zewu-Jun. It was a very large bed, big enough for him to curl over without touching him.

He hadn't thought of it the previous night, but it was strange for this bed to be so large, in a house so little and plain. A marriage bed of sorts, no doubt. Perhaps the house had served as a private getaway for a wealthy pair.

A husband and wife, surely dead by now....or maybe not....maybe it was a rich man and his mistress....

Meng Yao's eyes closed and sleep finally claimed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ppl have no idea the kind of work that goes into being evil😔turns out you spend a lot of time doing other shit in between the cackling and evil plans, and its hard to stay on track. He'll go back to scheming once he's had a good night's rest, he deserves it.
> 
> Extra info for the mousetail, its not called that in english or chinese, I wasn't even sure the plant existed outside of my native country and WOW. I said it grew everywhere as kind of a shot in the dark and huh. It grows EVERYWHERE. I know it from back home, in Romania, where we do call it mousetail (coada soricielului), turns out in english its called yarrow. It grows in china, north america, africa, all over europe, etc etc, and its been used for its medicinal properties for thousands of years in most of those places, though everyone seems to disagree on what exactly those properties are😂
> 
> In this fic i wrote the ones i knew before doing the research, blood coagulant, anti-infection and menstrual regulation (and that part i got to test for myself, the menstrual tea meng yao talks about was made for me and it worked very well) but other cultures use it to cure digestive problems, headaches, treat burns, relax the mind, etc etc. Its either a miracle plant or the world's most effective placebo😂
> 
> In china i couldn't find much about it being used for medicine though, it mostly appears in divination rituals? When i looked it up i was ready to make up a whole backstory about the mousetail being introduced into the local ecosystem by the same boat that brought over those potatoes😂turns out i don't need to cause its everywhere
> 
> Trying out some symbolism now as well😁in irish folklore putting a leaf of yarrow under your pillow for the night will give you dreams of your future lover. And xiyao are spending their first night together in a marriage bed!😂its cheesy i know.
> 
> Im very attached to Meng Yao's practical knowledge being 25% Nie education and 75% homemaking skills from growing up in a house full of women. 
> 
> Also yes this house is haunted AS FUCK and Meng Yao is very much in denial😂are you ever too stressed to deal with something so you just tell yourself you don't see it? Its pitch black outside and yet he's seeing a full moon? Its a face Meng Yao. Your crash shack is haunted. 
> 
> "Whoa haha looks like im so tired i can't even remember i arranged those arrow shards to all point directly at me! Time for bed lol."
> 
> ALSO am still looking for a beta😚


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You ever wake up suddenly at 3am and have to type out an entire chapter before you can fall back asleep? This is that. I love Meng Yao so much everything about him is interesting to me. Heres another episode fron his little gremlin childhood.

"Is that the brothel boy? Hey! Hey, how much for your mother again? We're planning on making a visit soon, so you can tell her! Liu ZuFei and his friends will be her best clients!"

Meng Yao looked straight ahead, replaying a song Cao MeiMei had taught him when they were children. It went up and down. Up and down, and then tapered into three identical notes. She didn't remember the words, so all she did was hum, all day long. She said it was a song about a gentleman and a whore.

'Can't you hum anything else? Is this the only song you know?' He'd answered, and Cao MeiMei had huffed and said _he_ should sing instead, then, if he was so picky, and he'd answered that he didn't want any singing at all, and so on, until it grew into a fight that had left them angry for weeks.

"Hey. Brothel boy, don't you have ears? We're speaking to you."

He adjusted the yoke on his shoulders with a shrug and kept on walking ahead. He didn't stop.

The boys were coming closer, while Meng Yao kept repeating the song to himself, over and over, just like Cao MeiMei.

He started descending the little path that led to the river, his pace slowing from the steep, rocky drop into the river below. The boys crowded around him along the way, all of them much better balanced without yokes and buckets.

"Aww, maybe he was born deaf, too, along with being the son of a whore. What did you do in your past life to get punished like this?"

He crossed the treeline into the forest, straight to the stream ahead. There was man there, in the riverbed, catching fish with his hands.

Meng Yao set down his burden deliberately close, and took out one of the buckets to fill it with water.

He kicked off his shoes, put them in his pocket, rolled up his trousers and waded into the stream, making a show of washing out the bucket with so much care it would surely take him hours.

The three boys didn't dare to try and beat him with the man so close by, so after a few more insults they left, bored of it, kicking Meng Yao's other bucket for good measure.

After their voices no longer resonated, and it was clear they were gone, Meng Yao exhaled and returned to shore, sitting down on a pile of rocks to rest.

He'd almost fallen asleep when a shadow panned over him.

"Excuse me."

Meng Yao opened his eyes. The fisherman. Oh. No he was young actually, now that he saw his face. With his back turned and his workman's clothes, Meng Yao had mistaken him for an adult.

The three boys probably had, too. It was luck that he hadn't turned around.

"You're sitting on my things. Move."

The pile of rocks was actually a firepit, he saw when he turned. The fish fretting in the boy's hands no doubt being the reason it existed.

Meng Yao moved out of the way and let him lay the creature on that slab he'd just been sitting on. He took a rock from the edge of the river and slammed it down, hard, on the fish's head. It stopped moving instantly. There wasn't even a drop of blood.

He quickly started a fire, and pierced the fish with a sharp stick to hold over the flames. The smell of cooking flesh rose up into the air, filling Meng Yao's nose and mouth, and coating his painfully empty stomach.

He turned and waded back into the river, rolling up his sleeves and looking down at the scintillating fish wading between his legs.

It couldn't be that hard.

He plunged his hands into the water, grasping at the slender silver dragon lazily wading through, but it turned quick as soon as it sensed movement, and Meng Yao fell into the water with a splash.

When he came back up, all he could hear was the mocking laughter of the boy on the shore.

"Is this the first time you've ever been in a river? I swear I've never seen anyone as bad as you!"

Meng Yao struggled back to his feet, angry as a wet cat, and yanked his sleeves back down. He stomped back to shore, or rather, tried to, only, the drag of the water on his calves disturbed his pace and caused him to fall in a second time.

Of course the boy only laughed harder, clutching his belly and wheezing, as Meng Yao pushed himself out with his arms, blindly grabbing at the hair that had fallen over his face like a curtain, spitting wet strands out of his mouth.

He sat there in the riverbed, contending with the heartburn that spread through his chest, over the roaring laughter of the fisher boy. He grit his teeth so hard he could feel pain.

It wasn't funny.

Meng Yao could feel the burning spread upwards, into his throat, filling his face, coagulating into the back of his eyes and...no no no, no not now, please not now.  
  
He got up and bent his head to hide under the curtain of wet hair, and waded through to the shore, arms stiff at his sides.

He roughly, briskly lifted the yoke and put it back on his shoulders, and walked away before the raging tears spilled over his face.

"Hey! Are you crying? No, wait, I didn't mean it! Come back!"

Meng Yao walked faster.

"Hey! Hey please don't leave! Im sorry! Don't be angry at me, I'm not a cruel person at all! You have to forgive me, my mother will curse me from heaven if you don't! Come on, I'll give you my fish!"

Meng Yao stopped in his tracks.

He waited a bit, for his throat to open again, wiping the tears and snot from his face, before turning to face him.

"Okay. Give me your fish, catch me three more, and then I'll forgive you."

The boy's face went from terror, to relief, to a petulant outrage.

"Come on! Three fish? Do you know how hard it is to catch one? That's not fair at all!"

"Suit yourself, then, I won't forgive you. Enjoy being cursed by your mother."

"Fine! Fine, I'll do it!" And he turned and plunged back into the stream, while Meng Yao set his things on the ground and sat down by the fire, to dry his clothes and eat his fish.

\------

An hour later, Meng Yao was eating his second, along with the boy, who said 'Here's one for you and one for me. I'll catch two more for you later, but let me eat this one first, I'm so hungry I could faint.'

Meng Yao had pondered it for a moment, then magnanimously allowed the boy to eat.

"What's your name?" The boy asked.

"Why? What's it matter to you?"

"What kind of question is that? It doesn't matter to me at all. Thats just what you say when you meet a stranger, isn't it? Its polite to introduce yourself. My name is Zhong Niu, see? Im not rude like you.''

"I'm not rude! My name is Meng Yao. You're the one who's too familiar."

"Ah, no way, no way, no one has ever told me that before! Being familiar is a good thing, it fosters friendship!"

"I have no interest in being friends with you." Meng Yao said, and wiped crumbs from his mouth.

"Well neither do I! You're mean, who wants to be your friend anyways!''

And with this the conversation ended, and both went back to eating their fish.

"What was up with those boys earlier by the way?" Zhong Niu said, less than a minute later, visibly incapable of being quiet for a single moment of his life.

Meng Yao gracefully raised his eyebrows and scratched at the charred scales of his meal, looking at the intricate colors still peeking through.

"Don't do that, you look stupid with that haughty look on your face. Come on just tell me, were they friends of yours or something?"

Meng Yao burst into laughter.

"Friends? Are you the one who's stupid? Did they look like my friends, kicking my things and insulting my mother?"

"Well, I don't know. Maybe? Friends do that sometimes."

"Oh? Do you have friends who do that? You should grow a spine and get better ones."

"Hey, at least I _have_ friends! With the way you talk to people, no wonder you get kicked around!''

"What do you know about it? I didn't speak to them, I've never said a word to them in my life. They're the ones who have a problem with me."

"What, they just started following you for no reason? Maybe it was your scowling face then!"

"It's not that either! They kick me because...because..." The anger constricting his throat cut off his voice before he could say it.

He simply settled and went back to his food, and now no matter Zhang Niu's prodding, he refused to speak again.

"Don't ignore me! You have to tell me what it is now, or the curiosity will kill me! Ugh, you're so unpleasant, you deserve to get kicked!"

"Shut up, you don't know anything!" Meng Yao's chin began to tremble. ''They kick me because I was born in a whorehouse, and my mother is a whore. There. Now leave me alone! Or kick me too. I don't care!"

At that last sentence Zhang Fei bristled, then folded in on himself like a guilty child.

"I wouldn't kick you...Even though you're rude and mean I would never kick someone just like that. I'm nice, everyone says so. Why don't you think I'm nice too? Whats your problem? I haven't done anything to you!"

"You laughed at me, and you called me rude, and you said I deserved to get kicked, what's nice about that? You're annoying. Why do you care so much if I think you're nice?"

Zhang Niu finally shut up, wrapping his arms around his knees and looking into the fire.

Just when Meng Yao though he finally had peace, Zhang Niu got up and sat closer.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made fun of you."

Meng Yao crossed his arms and looked to the side, at the tree that curved over the river.

A long moment passed.

"Do your friends really kick your things and insult your mother?" He said, picking at his nails.

"Yeah. Well, my cousins actually. And they don't insult my mother, just me and things I like. But its okay, its not as bad as it sounds. They do it to each other too, because its funny. Im not very funny myself, so I don't do it, but I don't mind it being done to me."

Meng Yao turned to look at him.

"I would definitely mind it."

"Yeah, well, you're weird. You mind everything."

Meng Yao shrugged and picked out a bone that stuck out over the wooden stick. He didn't want to admit that he was full and couldn't eat anymore.

"Hey, I want to ask you something."

Meng Yao held in a deep sigh.

"When _don't_ you want to ask me things?"

Zhang Niu ignored him.

"So, when my mother died, my cousins told me to stop crying and be grateful that my mother was dead, because at least she wasn't a whore, or a criminal, or an adulterer, and that was a blessing. Is that true? Your mother's a whore, so you should know right? Is it better to have a dead mother than a dishonorable one?"

Meng Yao looked at the fish in his hand and rested it against the rock, dusting his hands together. He squatted down and poked at the embers to revive the fire a bit.

Then he turned and threw himself at him, tackling Zhang Niu to the ground and blindly beating him, scratching his face and pulling his hair.

They rolled in the dirt, hissing like cats, punching and slapping each other down, until Zhang Niu gained the advantage and pinned his arms down to keep him from moving.

"Stop it! What's wrong with you! You're the worst, I shouldn't have apologized to you after all, ugh!! Who reacts like this to a normal question??"

"Fuck you! What do you mean normal question? What if someone asked you if it wouldn't be preferable for your mom to be dead? I don't care if she's dishonorable! She's a kind person unlike you and your cousins and everyone else in town. Maybe it would be better for all of _you_ to be dead, rather than be such fucking assholes!"

''Fuck! Stop yelling! If you say its better for her to be alive then I believe you! I really just wanted to know!"

Zhang Niu let go of his arms, then, and Meng Yao didn't try to hit him again, though he was still scowling.

"I asked because I didn't think it was true, is all, I swear! When my cousins said that. I thought, actually, I'd prefer it if she was still alive, even as a whore or a murderess or an adulterer. But my cousins are older, so they know best usually."

Meng Yao turned his head and looked at the dirt.

"They don't know best. They're stupid."

Zhang Niu crossed his arms and looked away.

''I'm sorry that you lost your mother." Meng Yao said. "If my mother died I don't think I could ever stop crying."

"I believe you. You cry at nothing."

Meng Yao scowled at him again.

"You should also say sorry for hitting me, you know. And look, you tore my sleeve! My dad is going to yell at me, I'm supposed to work in these!"

Meng Yao hurried to sit up, taking the sleeve in hand.

"I didn't mean to! Im sorry. I'll fix it, come with me and I'll stitch it for you, I have thread in my house."

"You know how to sew?"

Meng Yao nodded, still looking at the fabric.

"I work in the laundry at home. If there's a tear in the clothes I'm always the one who gets blamed."

"Let's go quickly then. I've already been out for too long."

They put out the fire, gathered their things, and started walking on back to the city.

"Ah, wait, what about the two fish?" Zhang Niu said.

Meng Yao thought for a moment.

"If you walk with me through the city, the boys from earlier won't bother me, that's one fish, and if you teach me how to catch them, that's two, so we'll be even."

"Are you saying those guys left earlier because I was there? Then shouldn't you be saying thank you?"

''Why? Its not like you did anything."

Zhang Niu huffed, and crossed the treeline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always thank you for reading, please tell me if you liked it (or if you didn't) and see you next time❤


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter is SPOOKY. Nothing gory or violence of any kind, but tons of unsettling moments, loss of reality, etc etc. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

_Thump-Thump, Thump-Thump, Thump-Thump,_

Meng Yao emerged to semi-consciousness with the sound of a heartbeat, right under his own. 

Loud. Strong. Healthy. 

Mingjue.

Just a nightmare, then. 

He'd dreamt he was in the woods, cutting open the first jade of Lan. Something about a ghost. Something about blood.

Perhaps he was feverish, or exhausted. He would have the Nie doctor take a look at him later.

In the meantime, if he opened his eyes pitifully enough, Mingjue would let him sleep a little longer. Underneath it all, Mingjue really was the sort of man who turned helpless in the face of kittenish caprice. 

He really did feel very tired. And he was cold too. How could he be cold? Mingjue radiated so much heat that in the summer Meng Yao could barely stand to sleep in his bed. 

In winter, every room he stood in was warmed through with his presence, like a human hearth. 

He had to be sick, and now Meng Yao was starting to worry. 

His chest hurt. 

And Mingjue wasn't breathing. 

Wait. He couldn't feel him breathe, he couldn't tell where he was at all. His heart should be right under his but no, he couldn't feel his ribs, the telltale softness of a human body. Meng Yao was on a flat, hard surface. He felt his heart seize up, wrenched himself out of three layers of sleep, and sat up, eyes blown open. 

Oh.

No, he wasn't sick. 

He brought his hand up to his wounded chest through softening breaths. 

Just tired. Just cold.

Meng Yao pushed his knees up against his chest and wrapped himself around them. 

He rested his forehead against his thighs and focused on raising the temperature of his body through cultivation. He didn't have so much energy to spare as to manage to keep himself warm all night. 

By the time he was comfortable enough to move again, the fabric on his knees was soaked through. 

He wiped his face and regained his composure.

Where had that sound come from? 

He placed his hand on the flat of the bed and felt nothing.

Zewu-Jun? Had he felt his heartbeat through the wood? 

Meng Yao laid down again. Nothing.

He turned abruptly and put two fingers to the man's neck.

He was alive, still. His heart was beating, weak but present. 

The heartbeat had just been a dream, then. 

Zewu-Jun opened his eyes, and Meng Yao took his hand away.

He looked at him, eyebrows furrowing, his eyes watery and out of focus. 

Slowly, the confusion in Zewu-Jun's eyes settled, replaced by a growing awareness of pain. His brows contorted, and Meng Yao turned away and left the bed without saying a word. 

He padded to the bag he'd left on the ground the day before and took out yesterday's portion of bread. 

The shattered arrows were back to normal.

It was probably the burnt smell of the house that caused all these nightmares.

He tore out pieces of bread with his teeth, still not hungry enough to enjoy any of it, and turned his head, to look anywhere but the little blood-stained table, or the bed on which Zewu-Jun rested.

He closed his eyes. What to do with him?

What to do. 

There was a thread in his mind that had been forming since yesterday. A nausea, right under his ribs. He pulled at it, and pulled and pulled until it became something he could follow. 

He looked over at the stirring form of Zewu-Jun, in too much pain to do more than move his head from side to side. 

He counted to ten, and turned his face inside out. No smiles, but still a gentle, concerned expression. Meng Yao got up and followed the thread, to kneel at Zewu-Jun's bedside. 

He turned to Meng Yao again, exerting some kind of effort to properly understand the room around him. 

"Zewu-Jun, please keep still. What do you need?"

A pained breath left his mouth, like he was trying to speak. 

Zewu-Jun's voice was faint and breathy, as if someone really had tried to slit his throat the day before, brows furrowed in a mixture of concern and confusion. 

"Where is...Mingjue. I have to find him." 

Meng Yao blinked and slipped on a face of genuine concern.

"Chifeng-zun is in Qinghe, I'll take you there once you're better."

Lan Xichen seemed to accept the answer and settle down. 

"What do you remember from yesterday, Zewu-Jun?" 

"Yesterday...I fell from my horse. I was on the road, then...you were giving me water through a piece of cloth..." 

"What else?" 

"I remember...I remember that you woke me, and then I fell asleep again. I remember you... from before."

He paused, a look of effort on his face.

"You came to Gusu, your name is Meng Yao." 

Meng Yao grit his teeth together. He had counted on Zewu-Jun having no memory of him at all.

Zewu-Jun closed his eyes, gathering himself up, before opening them again.

"Why are you not...in Qinghe...if Mingjue is there..." 

Meng Yao sat down on the edge of the bed.

He did truly plan on taking him to Qinghe. Zewu-Jun remembered his face and name, which meant that when he arrived he would surely speak of him, and there Nie Mingjue would tell him the truth.

"I am not a servant of the Nies any longer," he said, and the dismissal in his tone was studied but not feigned. "Would you like to eat now, Zewu-Jun?" 

He shook his head. 

"The...flow of Qi is better spent healing wounds than...digestion. I should be without food for the next week..." His breathing was becoming difficult, labored.

Meng Yao nodded and took the bread in hand again, trying to make himself eat the rest of it.

"Why...are you no longer...with the Nie?" Zewu-Jun said.

Meng Yao sat there a moment longer, staring into space.

"Because I killed a fellow soldier." 

Zewu-Jun turned toward him. His face betrayed no emotion, save that of fatigue.

"Did you have...reason?" He said through labored breaths.

Meng Yao didn't disguise his bewilderment.

"Chifeng-zun didn't care to ask me.''

''I am...asking you now..." 

It was all Meng Yao could do not to laugh.

What did it take for noblemen to be brought down to humility? 

Even now, naked, helpless, covered in wounds, Lan Xichen had the face of a man standing tall upon a dais, looking down at Meng Yao and weighing his misdeeds on a pair of fine silver scales. 

As though Meng Yao was kneeling in the throne room again, with a different man in front of him.

He could kill him. Smother him with a pillow like a kitten. That would teach the great Zewu-Jun just how much mercy he had left to dispense.

As soon as the thought entered his mind however, Meng Yao felt himself reeling.

No, he'd worked too hard to keep him alive.

He turned his head so Lan Xichen wouldn't see it in his eyes. 

''Whether my crime was justified or not, I am the only one here who will help you. You have no choice." He said it calmly, as if it were a reasonable argument, instead of a threat.

To his continued surprise, Lan Xichen protested no further. His face simply molded to a peaceful, noble acceptance of his fate. 

Meng Yao wanted to slap him. 

That regal composure that had so impressed him in Gusu was chafing at his nerves now. 

He'd had enough of formidable men. 

He grabbed the half empty water bucket from the previous day and stepped out of the door. 

-

Half an hour later, the water was boiling on the hearth and Meng Yao was carefully removing his bandages. He'd bled more in the night, so the fabric stuck and pulled at his skin. 

He hissed through his teeth when he ripped it off, to wash them in cold water before dropping them in the boiling pot.

He'd made another batch of paste, and spread some over his wound, going about his work bare-chested so as to avoid staining his clothes. 

He returned to the bed when Lan Xichen asked to drink, filling a cup with hot water to dip the cloth in again, but this time Lan Xichen turned his head away. 

Meng Yao resisted the urge to grab his face and squeeze his jaws open. 

"I thank you for your care, but I can drink the regular way." 

Meng Yao smiled at seeing the graceful Zewu-Jun, struggling under the humiliation of dependence.

"Zewu-Jun, if I tilt the cup it will spill and burn you." 

"I can sit up if you'll help me."

Meng Yao almost burst out laughing. 

He'd carved out his abdomen like a cut of pork only the day before! Did he not understand injury, having cultivated his whole life? 

"Let me take a look at your wounds first. A wrong movement might make everything open and bleed again.''

He peeled off the dried leaves one by one, revealing the shocking flesh underneath. Some wounds he remembered were now completely gone, untraceable, while others had gotten worse. 

Both sights were upsetting. 

Lan Xichen looked down at himself and gave up on his resolution to sit. 

His torso was all raised welts and infected wounds, torn battlefields in between patches of soft, brand new skin; spring snow on a well-trodden path. 

He closed his eyes and let Meng Yao feed him like an infant.

"You are injured as well." he then laboriously pointed, looking at Meng Yao's green chest. 

Meng Yao placed the waterlogged rag back into his mouth. 

When he removed the cloth, Lan Xichen gasped for air and spoke.

"What...caused it?"

"A sword.'' Meng Yao smiled, false and impatient.

"Whose sword?" 

"A Wen's." 

Lan Xichen quieted, humming for a moment. His eyes half lidded and distant. 

"Wen soldiers caused….mine as well. But you....already guessed it." 

"I saw the camp yesterday, before I found you." 

Lan Xichen closed his eyes.

"Did you see the men who were with me? I think...I remember passing them."

"Yes." He didn't let Zewu-Jun tire himself with his next question. "I checked all the bodies for signs of life." 

(It was important to do so, before trying to steal from them.)

"Everyone besides you was long dead." 

Lan Xichen nodded, eyes lost in the distance. 

"What were you doing there?" He asked after a moment. "That area isn't safe for travellers." 

"Enough questions for today, Zewu-Jun. I need to clean your wounds again."

Lan Xichen's eyelids shuddered at the prospect, and he finally closed his mouth. 

He submitted himself to the process, the prodding, and the washing, and the bleeding. 

Only now were they at peace.

Meng Yao examined every mark with a strange sense of ownership, as though each millimeter of raised skin was a welt left by his own fingernails. 

Not injuries at all, only traces of his presence. 

He carefully wiped each one, draining the pus as best he could from the welts that were infected, and when Lan Xichen whimpered from it, he placed a cool hand on his forehead to soothe him. 

The burns in particular had not healed well. All the blisters were intact, and the skin around them had not changed. Black to a crisp, bloated and useless. 

He covered the other wounds in the poultice, but ran out of it before he could finish. 

So, after wiping his hands and telling Lan Xichen to try and sleep for now, he took his empty bucket in hand and stepped out to find more. 

\--------

  
  


It was exactly midday now, warm enough outside that he could walk out without his tunic. 

Better to be bare chested than to have the bandages chafe at it more, even if the herbs were to fall off. 

He walked now in a different direction, having picked off most of the patches in their immediate surroundings. In half an hour's walk, he had found a few berries to supplement his lunch, but no magical herb in sight.

Then, without realizing, he found himself in a place with no herbs at all.

The path behind the house, one he had so far deliberately avoided. 

The Wen's way of things was to burn a trace of their passage in every road they walked through, as if a new map were being drawn. Landscapes and roads no longer bowed only to the rivers and mountains, but to military force.

This was not that.

The fire that had burned the house was old. Older than the Wen. It had damaged not only the construction but a wide tunnel of trees and plants behind it.

It must have been windy that day.

How long did it take for plants to heal from fire? 

There should have been new growths, but the soil was barren. Ashy. Gnarled, dried trees and needle sharp shrubs as far as he could see.

Still, there had to be an end to it, and so Meng Yao went on.

\---

A half hour later, he still hadn't found the end. It seemed the wood only grew ashier and more barren the deeper he went in, black trees growing straight and very close together.

Scarcely any leaves grew from the stumps, the few that did were dry and sharp, almost painful to the touch and strangely pale. 

Yet still the tall branches overhead were so numerous as to obscure the sunlight, casting only a diffuse shadow over the barren mulch. 

Meng Yao had long since lost all hope of finding anything of worth, but the strangeness of the place kept him walking forward. 

What was it that caused a forest otherwise so lush and green to dry out like this in places? Could a fire that looked over half a decade old really cause so much destruction? 

Something like apprehension curled in his stomach. He had to find out. 

Slowly, through the thick, blanketed silence of the dry forest, he picked up on another sound, one that had been running underneath the crunching of his steps for a long time now.

A faint, sustained buzzing.

Yes, and it was getting louder. 

Meng Yao followed it to the source, until he came to a row of trees so close together he could hardly squeeze through.

He passed his head between the trunks and saw what had caused the sound.

It was an enormous beehive, a few yards away. 

Separating them was a clearing, a flat expanse where nothing grew at all, save one bony plant in the center. A dwarflike bush, from which drooped sparse clusters of red pearls.

The hive behind it hung low from a single black branch, wedged between two inexplicably shimmering trunks.

From this distance it seemed to be moving. Pulsating, to the rhythm of a heartbeat.

Thump-Thump, Thump-Thump, Thump-Thump.

  
  
  


\---------

On closer approach, having squeezed between the trees, he realized the hive was not beating at all. 

It was the swarming of thousands of insects, shining, shuddering in and out of innumerable little holes, endlessly crawling over themselves. 

As for the shine of the trunks, it was caused by layers upon layers of dripping honey; thick and coppery, so plentiful that the wood almost disappeared under it.

Honey was good for burns. 

Huaisang had shown him just how you could steal from a hive unharmed, back then, during their long journey to Gusu. 

He remembered the bitter chew of honeycomb under his teeth. Huaisang laughing, their faces and clothes sticky and sweet.

He had to taste it again. 

Meng Yao set down his bucket along the clearing and grabbed onto a few of the brittle branches in the center, snapping them clean off. 

He gathered a pile of the dry leaves on the ground, and with the fire-starting stick in his pocket, worried at them until they emitted smoke.

Once he had a very small fire, he transferred it to one of the branches, around which he had wrapped more of the leaves. He then quickly stomped out the source.

Then, bucket in hand, he slowly approached the hive, and placed the smoke right underneath it.

This type of wood was just right. Instead of going up in flames, the resin inside of it smouldered thick and grey, enveloping the insects in fumes. 

After a while, the shuddering slowed, and the creatures turned sluggish and heavy. Some dropped to the ground, while others stopped moving altogether. 

Meng Yao even dared to gently push them out of the way with his hand, and received no sting in return. 

Progressively, the bees flew out, escaping far from the imaginary flames. The hive now looked like the cooling remains of a house fire.

Almost empty now, Meng Yao took out the blade from his trousers and planted it into the swollen top of the beehive, tearing it open until there was a gash large enough for his hand. 

He slipped his fingers inside and broke off a chunk of hive, revealing the burnished cells inside. Piece by piece dropped into his bucket, until it was filled to the brim with wax and honey.

He looked at his fingers, stained with red nectar, and licked the taste from them.

Too bitter, acrid.It tasted just like the place it had been made in. 

Barren, burnt.

Nothing like the fresh mountain flowers that had colored Huaisang's bounty, and Meng Yao's entire memory of him.

He sighed, taking his burden in hand, and made his way home.

\------

Finding his way back, however, proved harder than expected. 

Meng Yao had never lost his way before. No two trees ever looked exactly the same, and he always remembered.

Well, not until now. Never before had he struggled to tell if one object was another, and where it had been placed, but an impossible regularity was now crowding around him, every few steps repeating endlessly.

He could not rely on his vision at all. So, before he lost his way further, Meng Yao closed his eyes and began walking backwards. Retracing his way to the clearing from his body's memory alone.

He did not even bother opening his eyes to confirm he had returned to the clearing. 

The impulse came from some ridiculous part of his brain. It was the same part that had whispered to him as a child that a foot resting out from underneath the cover would be snatched by an invisible hand, or that shadows on the wall from the outlines of trees were fingers reaching down for him. 

It whispered to him now that if he opened his eyes he would find himself in the same, identical spot, having not moved an inch.

So his eyes remained closed, and from there he turned, and walked backwards again. 

The supple, scratching branches caught at his clothes and pulled at them like so many fingernails, and still Meng Yao did not open his eyes. 

Soon, the impossible quiet receded, and his buzzing ears softened to the babble of the stream. 

When he opened his eyes, he saw the outline of the house through the trees and had to resist the urge to run. 

It was childish to be so relieved, yet still a deep, grateful breath left his lungs when he broke through the treeline. 

Sunlight touched his face again, and banished all his nighttime fears. 

It was midday exactly. Not a time for nightmares. 

\------

He walked inside to find Zewu-Jun awake, but calm, not distressed in the least at having been left alone. 

He even seemed surprised to see him.

"Have you managed to sleep at all?" 

The question surprised Zewu-Jun even more.

"I...I suppose I must have...I don't remember it." 

Meng Yao came closer, raising one eyebrow.

"I only saw you leave a few seconds ago..."

It was ridiculous to shiver at this. Lan Xichen was injured and exhausted. 

He'd simply fallen into one of those unnoticeable, pitch-black voids of sleep without realizing. That was all. 

"You must be tired, still, then. Can you keep awake any longer? I've found honey for your burns." 

Lan Xichen nodded, eyes lost in the distance. He allowed Meng Yao to move his limbs aside, and only seemed to return to himself when he felt the thickness of the honey slowly layer over them. 

He shivered from it, not pain but discomfort. 

It was good that he could still feel anything at all. 

Meng Yao scooped up the viscous material with pieces of the honeycomb, raised it, and slowly let it drool over each limb in thick, golden teardrops.

Lan Xichen submitted himself to it, shivering and displeased, until he was practically trapped underneath. 

Half of him was moss, the rest was tree sap. The forest was slowly claiming him.

Meng Yao shuddered at the idea. 

He willed Lan Xichen to heal faster, so they could leave this strange place. 

\-------- 

There was plenty of honey leftover afterwards. He had no jar to place it in, and left out to the open air it would harden to uselessness. 

Meng Yao removed each piece of honeycomb from the sea of nectar and set them out, one by one, upright on the table. 

Air-dried they would turn to candy, and supplement his miserable rations. This much at least would not go to waste.

He left, then, to wash his hands in the river, and took the opportunity to wash his body as well. He peeled off the poultice and found the wound closed up again underneath. 

Meng Yao sat upon a rock and watched the green leaves wash away in the stream. 

When he got up again his legs and arms were stiff and sore.

Zewu-Jun was fast asleep when he returned, and Meng Yao found himself with no more work to do.

It was exactly midday however. Not a time for idleness. 

What had he meant to do again? Reapply the poultice? Oh but there was none left. Get out and find more? No, there was no more left in the area. 

All he had was the bitter honey, and it was dried and useless wasn't it? Dry and hard like candy, like the honeycombs all pointed straight at him like arrows. 

He hadn't arranged them this way, just like he hadn't arranged the arrows the night before, just like there hadn't been any moon in the sky last night, or any shadow in the doorway, or any dreams about heartbeats, was the candy dried yet? The honey and the mountain flowers? 

He would ask Huaisang about it, but tomorrow, for now it was exactly midday and he needed to go to sleep. 

Was that Zewu-Jun in his bed? Naked? He held in a giggle, how ridiculous. 

It was only as he lay down that he remembered, about the tendon in his leg slithering out like a worm, and felt the urge to scoot backwards and run from the room. 

But he was too tired, his arms were like lead and his head was full of wool. He would scoot away tomorrow.

For now it was exactly midday.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Children, a word of advice: don't eat red honey. 🤫
> 
> Please leave your comments below, and thank you endlessly to sabre for the betareading and excellent suggestions😁


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